


Rebuild All Your Ruins

by godofhammers (kishafisha)



Series: What If This Storm Ends? [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Post-Ragnarok, Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017), individual chapter warnings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-13
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-02-01 15:42:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 46,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12707946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kishafisha/pseuds/godofhammers
Summary: Honestly, this was meant to be a joke. It would have been a glorious trick, had Thor not gone and spoiled it.Edit 07MAR2018: Added fic cover to the end of Part III.Edit 29MAR2018: Added art commission byaivelinto Part III.





	1. Adrift

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Отстрой все заново](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16113173) by [fandom_Loki_all_inclusive_2018](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fandom_Loki_all_inclusive_2018/pseuds/fandom_Loki_all_inclusive_2018), [timid_owl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/timid_owl/pseuds/timid_owl)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This went digging in my brain after seeing the new film and I simply had to exorcise it. It was supposed to be a one shot and sort of...exploded. I cleared almost all the tags because it was just too cluttered for my tastes, so warnings are kept for each part in the end notes.
> 
> Story title is from _Immigrant Song_ by Led Zeppelin, because I am the most original of all time. Visit me on [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/godofhammers-ao3)!

Interstellar travel was not agreeable to Thor, nor had it ever been. In his centuries long life he’d always had ready access to the Bifröst to propel him in all his many travels across the cosmos; a luxury he’d taken for granted like so many others as a Crown Prince of Asgard. When Thor was a child he’d often complained at volume to his parents about taking an Asgardian vessel out over even a sort distance when they could pass through the exhilarating rush of the Rainbow Bridge, a habit that followed him into adulthood when he’d seek such adventure with his fellows. Yet now this starship he reluctantly captained held together the last vestiges of his race and Thor absolutely hated himself for even thinking the briefest of unkind thoughts toward it.

The _Foundation_ , as The Grandmaster’s cruiser had been renamed by her passengers, was not a true leisure craft as the mad tyrant’s party ship _Commodore_ had been, but it was still luxurious enough that the survivors of Asgard could comfortably settle in for the journey ahead. There was no easy passage to Earth for them now, no way forward but to travel in a great caravan of hope. Thor initially refused when Heimdall had taken him to an opulent cabin and summoned the remaining healers to treat his wounds, knowing that the space could easily house a family or two where space was now so limited. Despite his protests, the former Gatekeeper’s golden eyes had been unyielding as he insisted that the King of Asgard would have rooms befitting his station.

“King of an asteroid field…” Thor muttered darkly into his cup before he drained it. “King of dust.”

“Ooh, how broody,” a lilting voice teased from the doorway and he scowled at the Valkyrie standing there, a mocking smile on her lips. “Drinking alone to drown our sorrows, are we?”

“I am not in the mood, woman,” he said gruffly and reached for the bottle to refill his glass. The Grandmaster had generously stocked his ship with a plethora of alcohol from across the cosmos, which had included a store of fine Asgardian mead.

“And _I_ am offended you did not send for me, your majesty. I spent years perfecting the art of drinking to forget myself,” she reminded him as she crossed the room to stand over him. “I would have thought you wise enough to seek out my invaluable counsel on the matter.” Catching the bottle out of his unsteady grip, she tilted it back to drink from the neck in a long, satisfying pull.

“That’s a rare vintage!” Thor protested, trying to sit up and swipe it back from her. Realizing what he’d said, he slumped back into the cushions of his ridiculous settee. “They are all rare vintages now…a ‘limited edition’ they say on Earth.”

Rubbing sword callused fingers across her full lips to catch any stray drops of mead, the Valkyrie gave him an inscrutable look; her face clear of all decoration as it had been since they had left the ruins of their homeworld behind. “A king I know suggested that Asgard is not a place, but a people.”

Thor snorted and took up a fresh bottle, opening it ruthlessly, as though the glassware had personally given offense. “Sounds like a fool,” he said bitterly, then quirked his lips into a wry smile that offset his new eyepatch slightly. “A rakishly handsome fool.” He poured more liquid into his crystal cup, not caring to see if it was mead or wine now, and frowned in consideration. “It occurs to me…we have gone through much together in the past span of days and yet I do not know your true name.”

The Valkyrie paused in raising her stolen bottle to her lips again, then seated herself beside him, carelessly throwing her legs across his lap. “When a warrior joins the Valkyrior, she becomes a Valkyrie. Names mean very little when you are fighting alongside your sisters in glorious battle,” she said softly. “I would have thought they teach such things to a Crown Prince of Asgard.”

Grimacing, Thor finished pouring his drink, which she promptly stole from him. “I was never one for learning my histories,” he admitted, eyeing his stolen cup and cradling the bottle close lest the Valkyrie snatch that away as well. “Which is likely why I make so many blunders in life.”

“Admitting to the problem is a good first step,” she teased, grinning at him over the rim of her pilfered glass before she downed that as well.

Shaking his head in amazement, Thor leaned further back into the cushions and sighed. “Volstagg could drink like you…” he mused softly, not having meant to speak at all.

The Valkyrie raised a dark eyebrow at him, refilling the goblet with what was left of the mead she still held. “Volstagg?”

Thor closed his eye and swallowed thickly, clutching the bottle to his chest so tightly that he knew he was in danger of breaking it. “A…a good friend of mine. One of the Warriors Three…bravest men in all of Asgard,” he said thickly around the tightness in his throat. “It is no wonder that they were among first to die at Hela’s hand. Heimdall spoke of it to me…but part of me knew that it must be so. I knew who stood guard at the other end of the Bifröst when Hela cast me out. But it shames me to not have borne witness to their deaths.”

She was silent in her contemplation of him, then she raised the glass to honor the slain. “If they are as you say, then they will dine eternal in the halls of Valhalla.”

With a broken laugh, Thor rubbed a hand over his shorn hair, shaking his head. “I have lain _waste_ to Valhalla! It was part of Asgard, surely as Hela was. I’ve condemned them all so that we might live,” he said mournfully, covering his face briefly. “Volstagg’s wife and children must be somewhere among the refugees now…how could I ever face them?”

The Valkyrie had no answer for him and Thor suddenly remembered words he had once seen writ upon the surface of Darcy Lewis’ computer and gave another laugh that was closer to a sob as he quoted, “Now I am become death, destroyer of worlds.”

“Stop this,” the Valkyrie said firmly, sitting up and pulling the bottle from his hands before he could drink more of it. “This pointless recrimination does nothing but embarrass you. What has you so maudlin now? What happened to the tirelessly annoying optimism of our hero?”

Thor made a half-hearted attempt to recover the bottle from her, but then let out his breath in a rush and slumped where he sat. “It’s this…void.” He gestured out at the vast field of stars visible out the wide pane of glass. “I cannot abide being stranded in space like this…with nothing but metal and wires to bind us together.” He pushed his fingers through the short strands of his hair in frustration, then let his hands fall to his lap. “It is silent as death…I would give my other eye just to feel the breeze on my skin again.”

Sudden understanding dawned on her face as the Valkyrie took in the state of him again. “You’re a god of nature without a planet on which to stand,” she realized aloud. “They’ve been calling this ship _Foundation_ , yet you are adrift without the elements to call.”

Refocusing his eye on her, the god of thunder felt the truth of her words settle in under his skin, which did nothing to help alleviate the feeling. If anything, giving name to the discomfit that had been the catalyst of his drunken melancholy only made the sentiment worse. Thor could not even call to his power here, not without putting them all at risk. Should they come under attack in their steady progression across space, he would have only what little artillery lay on board to defend his people.

“Hush now…” she said softly, shifting a leg over so that she sat astride him now. She ran her fingers through his hair, tracing delicately down the line of his face to brush against his eyepatch. “I know what it is you need, my king…”

She leaned in slowly so that her breath ghosted over his lips and Thor raised a hand to slide into her long, dark hair. He caught the strands in his fingers and held her tight before she could close the final distance between them.

“Stop it, Loki. I do not need her.”

The Valkyrie’s body tensed above his own, then shimmered and changed until Jane Foster sat astride him. She gave him a wicked, devious grin that would have suited Darcy far better.

“Better?”

Thor shook the trickster with a gruff, irritated sound. “ _No_ ,” he said firmly.

In a glittering wave of magic, the woman shifted again, growing larger as Loki revealed himself. The god of mischief seemed briefly troubled, but then he grinned in challenge, still held fast by the firm grip on his hair.

“No, brother?” he asked mockingly, flexing his thighs atop Thor. “Then what is it you need?”

Honestly, this was meant to be a joke. A bit of mischief to rouse Thor out of this ridiculously self-deprecating slump that had been building ever since they left behind the ruins of their world. Really it was Thor’s own fault for inspiring him after he’d regaled the others on Sekaar with the tale of the time Loki had tricked him by turning into a snake. Only Thor was no longer a child and would not be so easily charmed as to pick up a serpent now, especially out here among the stars, but that was of no matter to Loki. He knew his adoptive brother’s tastes well enough to play him the fool. Thor _loved_ battle more than just about anything else and a Valkyrie was a living embodiment of that.

The plan was simple; Loki would wait until Thor reached a particularly low point in his slow descent into despair, then approach and seduce him while disguised as the Valkyrie. When the god of thunder took him in his arms, Loki would transform back into himself, shout ‘HA, IT’S ME!’ and then stab Thor for old time’s sake. It would have been a glorious trick, had Thor not gone and spoiled it. It was embarrassing to think that the god found it easier to see through Loki’s deceptions with mead clouding his mind.

Now he was caught, both in Thor’s unyielding grip and by his own ridiculous sentiments that had risen over the course their conversation. It was entirely unacceptable and he _hated_ to lose. His hands on the thunder god’s chest, Loki surged forward just enough to catch Thor’s bottom lip between his teeth when his brother did not answer him, tugging at it mercilessly. He honestly thought that would be the end of this little game; that Thor would thrust him away and they’d have a proper fight. He did not expect for Thor to shudder beneath him and tighten his grip as he pulled Loki into a rough kiss.

Loki drew a sharp, surprised breath and resisted only a moment before a switch flipped inside his mind and he _devoured_ his king, pressing close to Thor’s broader frame with a satisfied groan. This was madness, he couldn’t possibly be sitting astride Thor as though he were the object of the god’s desire and yet there Loki was, rolling his hips down onto the swelling heat between them. Possessive desire curled through Loki and he _wanted_ with such ferocity to take everything being offered to him.

Instead, Loki shoved back from Thor and glared at him, his breath leaving him in harsh pants. “You’re _drunk_ ,” he accused the other god angrily.

“Loki,” Thor breathed wantonly and tried to pull the sorcerer back into his kiss.

Though his adoptive brother had always been stronger than he, Loki was easily more skilled in close combat and there was no contest when Thor was deep into his cups. He jabbed his fingers sharply into a nerve in Thor’s arm to relax his grip on Loki’s hair and neatly rolled them onto the floor, pinning Thor there with a knife to his throat.

“Let me be abundantly clear, _brother_ ,” Loki murmured darkly, his pale green eyes burning with intensity as he leaned over him. “ _When_ I have you, you’ll be painfully sober. There will be no excuse for you to hide behind, no cause for regret except your own dark desires and you will _beg_ me all the same.” He pressed just hard enough that the blade drew a bead of blood at the hollow of Thor’s throat, then banished the dagger and ducked down to claim the crimson drop on his tongue.

Getting to his feet, Loki stood over Thor and let his eyes roam over his form, pleased to see that the thunder god did not appear at all put off by his words, swollen still within the confines of his leathers. Grinning maliciously down at the king, Loki stepped over him and vanished even as his doppelgänger took his place, appearing to stride from the room. Just because he wanted Thor in full control of his faculties (and Loki could admit he had drank enough in his little game that he was not unaffected) did not also mean that he wasn’t curious to see what Thor would do.

Searching out with a hand until it closed around the neck of one of his discarded bottles, Thor flung it toward where Loki had last stood before turning away, watching suspiciously as it sailed harmlessly to smash against the far wall. Thor glowered about the room as though he weren’t sprawled on his back and achingly hard, then let his head fall back with an irritated grunt. His throat worked for a few moments before he decided that either Loki truly had gone or he remained hidden from view and Thor was too inebriated to care much the difference as he palmed at himself through his leather breeches.

“Damn you, trickster,” Thor growled through his teeth, bucking his hips up into the touch.

Bringing his hand to his mouth, he licked a broad stripe across his palm and pulled open his lacings roughly to take himself in hand. Groaning, he worked over his flesh angrily, his motions fast and hard, though not terribly coordinated with mead singing through his blood like the kiss of battle. Thor’s movements slowly became less angry and forceful as sensation began to take him, the sting of rejection fading as he imagined he could still feel clever green eyes upon his flesh through the haze of alcohol in his mind. Moaning helplessly despite himself at the thought, a flush of humiliated pleasure rose on his skin even as he squeezed at his swollen cock.

Spreading the slick fluid leaking out of him along his length to ease its passing, Thor slid his other hand up his chest and found the small wound Loki’s blade had left in the hollow between his collarbones. Heat pooled low in his belly and he could feel the build of his release at the thought that everyone would see the mark on their king come morning and somehow know what he’d done. Thor arched as he pressed his fingers against the wound, groaning as the slight sting of pain brought his brother’s words back to him again.

_‘When I have you…’_

“Loki…” Thor gasped brokenly and came hard and fast over his fist, staining his leathers.

Panting heavily, he stroked himself a few more times while his body shuddered, then slumped back against the unforgiving, mirrored deck of the ship. The room spun slightly as he stared blankly upward into the low, artificial lighting, finding it hard to get his eye to focus. Loki had been right, of course…he _was_ drunk. Enough that Thor was grateful he hadn’t further humiliated himself tonight by proving impotent in his desperate need for release.

He let out a sigh as the cold of metal and glass and unfeeling technology started to sink into his body, pushing unsteadily to his feet and stumbling over to his bed. Whatever recriminations his conscience had in store for him come morning, at least for tonight Thor no longer felt the weight of the dead or the empty song of the void beyond the skin of the ship. Shoving out of his clothing and carelessly brushing aside his eyepatch, Thor wound his drink heavy limbs up in the blankets and succumbed to sleep.

Loki watched his adoptive brother slumber for a long time, until the possessive lust burning through him had tempered his resolve. He had failed to take Midgard and failed to hold Asgard, but Loki _would_ have Thor. Simply watching the god succumb to his base nature had been such a challenge, but he’d persevered and even refrained from finding his own release. Even now the ache of unfulfilled need still sang in his veins, fever-bright and yearning.

The bottle thrown at his person had been all too easy to avoid, leaving him amused for once by Thor’s newfound proclivity toward testing for illusions through force like the brute that he was. The greater trial had been watching Thor pull at his flesh as though it were a punishment and Loki very nearly let the enchantment fall just so he could make the god do it properly. Even angry and desperate for distraction as he was, Thor was still devastatingly beautiful and Loki had moved to silently stand over him again, a thrill of power pulsing through him to look down at him this way. So many years of violence and plots and machinations and all Loki had to do to reduce Thor to this was to deny him _his_ touch. And to see Thor touch his mark…to _acknowledge_ the effect Loki had on him…

Now his face was slack with sleep, though far from peaceful still. Even now a line furrowed between his golden brows and Loki wondered if it was the fallen or the vast emptiness of space that haunted his brother now. Moving silently to the head of the bed, Loki reached out to rest his long, pale fingers on Thor’s head and closed his eyes, searching inward with gentle tendrils of his power. The dead were waiting there, standing silent and still and gray as the rubble they stood upon.

“You cannot have him,” Loki whispered fiercely to them and pushed out his magic without a thought.

The dream shifted, bending and reforming to his will until he’d built a golden hall on a hill of sweet smelling grass, shining in the late afternoon sun. Remembering Thor’s earlier words, he added a breeze that played over the tall stalks, bending them just enough that it looked a shimmering sea of green and gold. Loki continued to shape the dreamscape until it mirrored the stories of Valhalla they’d once heard at their father’s knee. One by one, the dead began to slough off their grim countenance and resemble the proud warriors they would be remembered as, their armor gleaming bright as the hall above them.

A figure pulled away from the crowd and moved toward Loki, startling him when he recognized Frigga’s strong, beautiful features. He watched wide-eyed as the woman who raised him approached in the dream, unsure if he was looking at her through Thor’s eye or his own. She raised a hand to his face and Loki felt flayed open at the soft touch to his cheek.

“My son…” she said softly, her eyes bright with unshed tears. “Loki…”

With a gasp, Loki broke away from the dream, pulling back his hand as though he’d been burned. Trembling a little, he stared down at Thor, barely even registering that his face had finally smoothed out, looking younger than his years. It wasn’t possible…Loki must have been more affected by the mead than he’d realized. That or he’d gone too deep into Thor’s dream until it had started to become his own. Hopefully he hadn’t done permanent damage to the fool now that Loki had decided to claim him.

He lifted unsteady fingers to his cheek where he still felt the ghost of a touch, then wiped away a tear that had fallen there and let his hand drop with disgust at his foolishness. Loki was becoming nearly as mawkish as Thor now. He spared the god of thunder one final glance, desperate to reach out to him again, then forced himself to turn away. After all, Thor needed his rest if he was to be of any use to Loki, and Loki had such _plans_ for his prize.

Thor awoke with a smile on his face, despite the aching in his skull and the dryness of his mouth that spoke of overindulgence such as he’d not felt in many years. In his dreams he had been among his friends once more, wandering the countryside that surrounded a great golden hall and sharing stories both new and familiar. He regaled Fandral, Hogun and Volstagg with his turn in the gladiator ring on Sakaar, embellished in his own favor just a little more than was truthful, and told them of the final battle against Hela. They in turn spoke of their own final battles and of all that had happened while Thor was gone away to willing exile on Midgard and then in search of Infinity Stones. Though Thor had tried to follow them into the golden hall when the sun began to set, they gently pushed him away.

“It is not for you,” Hogun told him solemnly.

“Not yet, at least,” Fandral assured with a roguish wink.

“But when?” Thor asked almost petulantly and immediately felt foolish, looking away from them. “I do not wish to be parted from you, my friends…”

“And you shan’t be,” Volstagg said firmly, clapping him on the shoulder. “Look after my wee ‘uns, won’t you?”

“I swear it,” Thor promised sincerely. “Volstagg, I…I’m sorry. And to all of you, I-”

“Oh, come now, my good man! If you start getting emotional now then Hogun will surely be reduced to tears and I will be helpless but to follow,” Fandral grinned and gestured at the stone-faced warrior, who had likely never shed a tear from the moment he left the womb.

“Dawn comes,” Hogun said to the others. “We must go.”

“Dawn?” Thor wondered, looking at the setting sun in confusion. When he had turned back, the Warriors Three and the hall beyond had disappeared from view, but strangely Thor did not feel alone.

Now he sat up slowly, grimacing as his brain threatened to burst clean out of his skull at the motion. Groaning, Thor raised his knees to brace his elbows and held his aching head until the initial wave had passed. He’d be sorted after a shower and a hearty meal, but the next few hours were sure to be unpleasant. Rising from the bed, Thor nearly killed himself slipping on a bottle and the memory of last night returned to him with sudden, shocking clarity.

Thor had kissed Loki. By the wisdom of the Norns he had attempted to do far more than that and Loki in turn had… His fingers found the mark at his throat, scabbed over in the night and a rush of heat slid along his spine; half desire, half shame.

_‘When I have you…’_

Shuddering, Thor closed his eye and ignored the swelling in his groin. He was not so completely blind to have not noticed the tension between him and his brother in the centuries they’d known the other. The truth of Loki’s parentage had only enflamed the thing further, though it had been obviously hampered by his courtship of Jane and Loki’s misdeeds. And then his brother had ‘died’ in his arms and Thor had abandoned Asgard, unwilling to be surrounded by a world that reminded him only of his loss.

Thor had run from Asgard to Jane only to constantly leave her also in his quest to prove himself a hero; as though saving others could make up for failing to save Loki. Instead he’d only lost her, too, and Thor could hardly blame her for their parting, despite what he said to others. Even when he was present in her life he’d been gone, lost to his memories. It was too much to ask of a mortal, who simply did not have excess years to spend consumed by grief. Nor could Thor ask Jane to understand how he could have loved a person over so many mortal lifetimes and thus find it easy to forgive their missteps time and again.

With the events of the past few weeks, Thor had not even had the chance to fully come to terms with the fact that Loki was _alive_. That he’d betrayed Thor _again_ and subsequently helped to bring about the literal end of the world. Lost to drink and his guilt as he was the night before, Thor had found that he _needed_ his brother close…needed to feel the life in him under his hands, to taste it on his lips. It was wrong, there was too much history between them to ever allow such a thing to come to fruition and yet…

_‘When I have you…’_

Cursing himself a fool, Thor let his fingertips fall away from his throat and shook his head to banish the thoughts. He had his people to think of and he’d already failed them by letting himself succumb to despair. Thor was king now and he had to fulfill his role to the best of his ability. It was the least he owed his people after robbing them of their homeland. With that thought heavy on his heart, Thor pushed aside thoughts of vivid green eyes and wicked smiles to prepare for the day.

Though Asgard had been home to any number of trades among her people, at the heart of her people lived a lust for endless, magnificent combat. It hadn’t taken long for one of the large chambers of _Foundation_ to be designated as a sparring ground to keep their warrior instincts sharp as much as to prevent anyone settling into cabin fever, be they of Asgard or Sekaar.

Despite knowing the room’s purpose, Loki was still not expecting to be under attack _immediately_ upon setting foot within the chamber when he went looking for Thor that afternoon. He deflected the dagger flying toward his face with one of his own, conjured to his hand, and countered reflexively only to have it blocked in turn. The Valkyrie laughed in bawdy delight and began a furious assault upon his person.

“Is there-“ Loki ducked under the slash of a blade “-something I can-“ he elbowed her in the ribs and narrowly avoided a knee to his groin “-help you with?!” he shouted the last in annoyance, managing to disarm her.

“Doing fine, thanks!” she told him jovially and punched him between the eyes.

They continued on in this manner for some time, each landing blows upon the either without managing to cause serious harm, though it certainly wasn’t for a lack of effort on Loki’s part. He distantly heard Korg come and cheer them on at one point before questioning Miek if the insectoid thought it was some sort of mating ritual or an attempt to escape the inexorable pull of memory. At last they both slumped to the floor, bleeding and bruised and utterly exhausted.

“You,” Loki panted, waving his knife at her weakly, “are the _rudest_ woman…I’ve ever met…”

“Flattery will…get you…everywhere…” the Valkyrie was equally as winded as she landed a final, playful kick. She grinned fiercely over at him, her lip swollen and blood leaking sluggishly from a cut above her right eye. “Thanks… I needed that…”

“You’re _insane_ …” he told her honestly, flexing his fingers to be sure none of them were broken.

The Valkyrie only laughed at this and managed to lift her hips so she could pull a flask from her back pocket. She drank deeply from it until it was empty, then threw it at his head and belched. “Better. Frigga trained you, didn’t she?”

Loki froze from where he’d been about to fling a newly summoned knife at her in revenge, caught off guard by the question. “What?”

“Frigga. Queen of Asgard? Your mother? Sorry, _adoptive_ mother,” she clarified with a roll of her eyes, making quotes of her fingers.

“Former Queen,” Loki corrected a bit numbly, staring at her.

She grimaced at that and sat up rubbing at the back of her neck. “So I heard…I’m sorry, she was a good warrior.”

“You knew her?” he wondered, his expression guarded. He imagined he could still feel the ghostly touch of her hand upon his face.

“We all knew her,” the Valkyrie said with a wistful nod. “She was once our sister after all.”

“Moth- Frigga was a _Valkyrie?_ ” Loki asked in disbelief.

“Up until she fell in love with Odin. The Valkyrior all love the king, of course…that love is part of what makes us such valiant fighters,” she spoke rather longingly, her eyes distant. “But to be _in_ love with him was too much of a liability. Frigga had to give up the Valkyrior…it was just fortunate that Odin loved her back. It was the catalyst that led to Hela’s end…and the end of the Valkyrior.”

Loki’s brow furrowed as he picked apart her meaning. “Frigga wasn’t Hela’s mother, then.”

“That cursed hag had no mother,” the Valkyrie spat, hatred of the goddess still clear in her. “One cannot give _birth_ to _death_. Odin created her of Asgard and so of Asgard she drew her power. With Frigga’s influence, Odin began to seek himself a better king, and thus did Hela turn against him.” Her expression was dark with long burning anger and hurt, but she released it again with a sigh, looking over at Loki with a pained smile. “I could tell that she must have trained you the first time we fought. You move like one of us…and you cheat with magic just as Frigga did.”

“I was always smaller than the other Aesir children…not suited to the same training Thor undertook,” he muttered, though Loki found that this new revelation had removed a little of the bitterness from the memory. Thor had once spoken endlessly of the glory of the Valkyrior, yet it was _Loki_ who their mother trained in their arts.

“Fighting you made me feel almost as though I had my sisters back,” she admitted, getting to her feet and offering him her hand. “Thank you.”

Loki stared at her hand as though waiting for it to form a fist, then took it and accepted her help up to his feet, feeling the ache in his body. “Any time. Although…I would appreciate a warning before we begin.”

She smirked mischievously at this and patted his shoulder almost sympathetically. “Not likely,” she said honestly, before her smile turned deadly. “But if you ever touch my mind as you did back on Sekaar, even the Eternal Flame won’t be enough to bring you back.”

Though Thor’s pride was too great for him to admit that he had been keeping a watchful eye out for his adoptive brother, the unmanful yelp of surprise he gave when he turned a corner directly into Loki’s path more than gave him away. Storm blue eye wide, he swallowed thickly as Loki’s gaze travelled over him with a slow, satisfied smile.

“I… Ah…” Thor stammered, then frowned when he took in the sight of Loki in turn. “What has happened to you?”

Rolling his eyes, Loki waved a hand in annoyance and magic slid over his features to conceal his cuts and bruises. “Unimportant,” he said dismissively.

“Loki, if someone has attacked you, they _will_ know my wrath,” Thor told him rather imperiously, putting a hand to the trickster’s arm.

Raising an eyebrow with a curious expression, Loki regarded Thor, then conceded, “Your mad Valkyrie has decided me her new sparring partner.” He stepped forward into Thor’s space, crowding him backward against the smooth, black wall of the corridor. “Are you so concerned for me, even in the sober light of day? Or whatever it is we have here to account for the passage of time.”

Thor felt a flush rise to his face, trying to edge out along the wall away from the god of mischief. “You know that I am, as I have always been. I do not wish to play your games today, Loki,” he told him firmly, flustered and discomfited by the memories of their actions the night before.

Caging in the god of thunder with his arms, Loki grinned wickedly at him. “If you didn’t have a mind for games, then perhaps you should not have _started_ one,” he told him, easing a thigh forward to press up between his legs. “Did you think of me, brother? Did you grip at your flesh and curse my name as you came? Was it the first time or one among many such stolen moments?” Brushing his nose along the edge of Thor’s beard, Loki breathed in the scent of ozone that clung to the god of thunder and tilted his head to breathe into his ear. “Do you wish to do it again right here? To claim your ‘protection’ on my person where anyone might see?”

His breath hitched with pleasure that rose in a low, burning heat even as Thor brought up his hands to grip at Loki’s arms, pushing him back slightly. “Stop this madness. Why are you doing this, Loki?”

Eyebrows lifted in mock surprise, Loki’s lips spread in a wide smile. “Didn’t you want me to ‘grow’ and ‘change’? Well here I am…ready to change. Ready to _serve_ ,” he all but purred, rubbing deliberately against the heat pooling in Thor’s groin. “In the last few weeks you’ve lost so much, Thor… Your father, your hammer, your power, your freedom, your pride, your vanity, your home…don’t you deserve something in return for your efforts?”

Thor shuddered as Loki slid one hand down over his chest, the splay of his fingers wide and possessive before they moved back up to pull his jerkin aside enough to see the healing mark he’d left there the night before. Leaning in, Loki pressed his lips to it almost tenderly, humming softly in satisfaction. Opening his mouth to reply, Thor honestly did not know if it was to refuse or acquiesce when he suddenly heard heavy footsteps headed toward them and pushed Loki away more firmly, darting a wide-eyed glance down the passage.

Giving him a rather unfathomable look, Loki slid his eyes over the length of him again and then smiled, turning to walk away as though unaffected. “Remember what I told you last night, Thor. I meant every word.”

Swallowing thickly and struggling to get his body back under control, Thor quickly started walking in the opposite direction, flushed and unsettled. He gave another unfortunate yelp of surprise when he almost immediately walked into Heimdall and was caught in his golden, knowing gaze.

“H-Heimdall!” he greeted the old Gatekeeper, laughing nervously as he tried and failed to look casual. “How fare you this day?”

“This course of action you have set upon is unwise, my king,” Heimdall told him bluntly, folding his arms across the broad span of his chest. “You must think of your people now. We cannot afford such dalliance, especially with one who has proven traitor time and again.”

“Loki saved us all,” Thor reminded him, despite that he’d been harboring similar thoughts. “We would none of us be here now without his timely intervention, first with the ship we stand upon and then with Surtur. You would do well to remember that.”

“Indeed, my king,” Heimdall inclined his head in agreement. “And you would do well to remember that your brother has used acts of supposed heroism before to serve his own end.” He held up his hand to stay off Thor’s anger, shaking his head. “I am sworn to serve the crown still and will make no move against you or your brother, even if there is no longer a gate left for me to keep. But until we make safe passage to Midgard, we are all but defenseless… I only ask that you be cautious for the sake of Asgard, so she may again take root and flower.”

The harsh weight of his responsibility settled over Thor and he bowed his head in a nod. “Thank you, my friend. For your loyalty and your counsel both. It is as you say…I must put Asgard first in all things now.”

It was inevitable that Loki was going to end up seeing the monster again, given that they were both caged in to the confines of _Foundation_ , but that didn’t mean he was actively seeking him out by any means. To the contrary, Loki spent most of his time on board the _Commodore_ , despite his eagerness to break up the monotony of space travel with this game he and Thor were playing. Had the situation been different, he would have been down among the people, reveling in the glory of playing the savior while Thor seemed so determined to take all the credit for Asgard’s destruction.

Were it not for the fact that Thor and the Valkyrie had taken it upon themselves to convince the beast to stay to the lower cargo hold as much as possible, Loki would not have left the pleasure vessel at all. He could not for the life of him understand why they were entertaining the notion of keeping him on board in that state for the months it would take them to reach Earth. In the brief time Loki had seen the so-called Hulk in action, he had witnessed the monster tear through ships and buildings and bodies as though they were made from wet paper. And now his fool brother had locked the beast into a starship that was one torn hull away from the genocide of Asgard.

Needless to say, Loki was careful to exercise caution when he did venture out into the wider population, sometimes invisible, sometimes camouflaged. Yet the god of mischief found that sometimes he simply couldn’t help walking around in his own skin to see the cautious, desperate gratitude on the faces of his people. So really he had no one but himself to blame when the Hulk caught him at last.

“Oh,” Loki said, his voice an octave higher than usual as an enormous green fist swept him off his feet, holding him up for inspection. “Hi.”

“Puny god,” Hulk grunted and squeezed his fist around Loki’s ribcage painfully.

“No! No, no, remember?” he gasped out, pushing at the unyielding green fingers. “Remember how I saved everyone? Brought this ship?” Loki raised an arm and gestured around at the angular black and neon blue lines of the starship.

He thought only briefly of transforming himself to try and escape the punishing grip on his torso, but grasped as he was Loki wasn’t certain it would not be to his great peril to do so. Attacking Hulk outright was out of the question…if the beast didn’t kill him outright, they’d end up causing such havoc so as to doom them all anyway.

“Hulk _hates_ ship!” he growled angrily, bringing the sorcerer closer to glare at him.

“What are you up to there, big guy?” the Valkyrie asked from behind Hulk, her voice friendly and warm.

“Angry girl,” Hulk said approvingly and relaxed his hold on Loki slightly as he turned to face her, showing off the sorcerer in his grasp. “Hulk find puny god.”

The Valkyrie’s eyes flicked over to Loki and back to the monster, then she smiled and patted his arm. “I can see that. Are you finished with him? I’d like to have him back now.”

Unhappy at this, he glared at Loki again, fingers tightening threateningly, then sighed petulantly and set him down none too gently. “Fine,” he sulked, though he cheered up a little when the Valkyrie punched him lightly in affection.

“Thanks, big guy. I’m getting hungry, why don’t you go save us a table in the mess hall?” she suggested.

“Okay,” he agreed and knocked Loki aside carelessly as he walked off to do just that.

Wincing in pain, Loki got to his feet with deliberate slowness in case his movements brought the beast back to bear on him, feeling at his ribs tenderly to assess the damage. “Thank you,” he grimaced, nodding at the Valkyrie. “I thought you were having him stay further below deck.”

“He’s not a prisoner,” she pointed out, looking a bit angry at the thought before she let it go with a sigh. “But he’s getting restless. As much as I like the big guy, he’s not well suited to this environment.”

“The amount of resources alone he must be consuming have to be staggering,” Loki mused. “Why hasn’t he changed back?”

“Thor spoke to me of some kind of trigger he used to transform him on Sekaar, a red-haired woman they know on Earth,” she said with a shrug. “Bringing up Bruce only upsets him, so I’ve been trying to keep him distracted instead. It helps that the Aesir all respect him as a great warrior. He may be big and rough, but he still has deep hurts on his heart.”

“A red-haired woman?” Loki asked, thinking back to the Avengers. Could simply seeing the Black Widow truly bring an end to the Hulk’s reign on board? Honestly, pained as he was, Loki thought it to be worth the risk. “Right, then.”

Without a word of explanation, Loki turned on his heel and walked off in the direction the beast had gone, focusing his mind. He ignored the Valkyrie as she came up beside him to question what he was up to, needing to clear his mind and bring it to bear on the task at hand. She fell silent as it was when his magic melded over his form, guessing at his intentions from the sight of his blood-red hair.

The Hulk was easy to spot when the entered the mess hall, standing heads above even the tallest of the Aesir as he told them in his primitive way of how he’d defeated Thor in battle, much to the delight of the bystanders. Thor, standing nearby and draped in a fall of rich fabric that was not unappealing, did not look so pleased and kept trying to interject his own version of events into the tale. He caught sight of Loki first and his face paled with shock and recognition before his brows furrowed deeply in understanding and he made his way across the room in quick strides to block Loki from view.

“What are you… What game is this, Loki?” he hissed at him under his breath, catching at a slender arm in his firm grip.

“I am solving your little _problem_ ,” Loki told him plainly in Natasha Romanov’s low tones, red lips pursed in annoyance. “You cannot mean to keep him this way.”

“No, of course not,” Thor waved him off, glancing back over his shoulder to be sure they hadn’t caught the beast’s attention yet. “But he is not as I knew him on Earth…Banner was unsure when last we spoke that he would be able to emerge again. If this fails and enrages him instead…”

Loki swallowed nervously, leaning over slightly to look at the monster before shrinking back again. “Then I suggest you clear the room, should it go awry.”

Brow furrowed with confusion, Thor searched Loki’s face, hidden beneath the assassin’s features. “This is unlike you, brother… Since when are you one to put yourself in danger before others?”

“Has it occurred to you that I am in _more_ danger if I do nothing? Fear not, I assure you my motivations are purely selfish,” Loki spoke wryly, folding his arms beneath his breasts and cocking a hip.

Thor scowled, then gave in at last with a sigh, “So be it. Natasha and Banner had a phrase they used to catch his attention while she held out her hand to him. ‘The sun’s getting real low.’”

“Isn’t that the tactic you so _successfully_ used against him in your battle on Sekaar?” he asked mockingly, a gleeful expression on his face at the memory of how _that_ had played out.

“I hope he _flattens_ you,” Thor muttered darkly, turning back to the room at large. Raising his voice, he called out, “My friends, I ask that you might allow me to dine with my mighty friend alone.”

Staring at the broad plane of Thor’s back, broader even still for his own diminished height at the moment, Loki grinned wickedly and pressed close to the god. He felt Thor tense and try to pull away, but quickly slid his arms about the king, hidden under the drape of his cloak, and splayed his hands over his belly. Thor reached back to swat at him and Loki retaliated with a sensual roll of his hips. The Valkyrie coughed once from beside them and Loki looked over at her in surprise, having quite forgotten she was still there.

Raising her eyebrows at him, she mouthed ‘adopted’ and made quotes of her fingers as she had after their spar and Loki glowered, pulling away from Thor and raising an eyebrow coolly. She laughed at his expression even as Thor stepped even further away with a flustered expression, his voice an octave higher than before as he continued to wave everyone from the room until it was empty but for the three of them and the monster.

All thoughts of games and tricks aside, Loki straightened his shoulders and shook out his arms slightly as though he could so easily shake away the fear in his heart. Not that he would dare to show or even admit to the frightened, primal thing curled inside him. Loki had fought many monsters in his life, had done a show at playing one himself more than once, but nothing he’d seen was quite like the Hulk. What kind of creature did not slow, did not tire, but fought without mercy or reason until there were none left standing? Loki wondered idly what would have transpired had Hela faced off the thing that lurked at the heart of Bruce Banner.

The Hulk had not yet taken notice of him as he slowly approached the beast, his boots silent on the deck. Thor and the Valkyrie kept pace beside him, tension in their bodies like a live wire, ready for battle.

“Hey, big guy,” Thor called out, stopping their progress out of the easy reach of the immense figure. “I have a surprise. An old friend here to see you.”

Loki rolled his eyes at Thor’s piteous attempt at an introduction, put kept his gaze forward on the beast as he turned. The recognition was plain within moments and Loki was surprised to see something almost like fear on the monstrous green face as Hulk caught sight of his bespelled form. Surging up to his feet, Hulk stumbled back a few steps, crashing through the table without a thought as he dropped the wheel of cheese he’d been holding.

“No!” Hulk cried out in protest, swiping a hand as though to banish a ghost. “No Nat! No Banner!”

“Bruce,” he began gently, stepping forward slowly, “the sun’s getting real low.” Though it was the last thing he wanted to do, he held out his hand in supplication.

“Easy, now…” the Valkyrie said softly.

“NO!” Hulk roared, clutching at his head, but already it was clear that Bruce was fighting for control once more.

Emboldened by his power over the creature, Loki stepped even closer, letting his expression go soft and beseeching. “Please, Bruce…come home. Come home to me,” he whispered, low and loving, reaching out to touch the beast. He gasped in pain as a fist closed punishingly tight around his arm, but even as Loki watched the hand shrank and browned until it was wholly human.

Bruce Banner slumped to the floor, still holding tight to Loki’s arm, though the grip was desperate and not dangerous now. His eyes were closed tight as he sorted through the pain and sensory overload that came with returning to form after so long removed, but Bruce managed to open them after a moment to squint up at Loki, panting softly with the exertion of the change.

“N-Natasha?” he asked, voice rough.

Unsure whether or not to reveal himself with the change so new, he glanced back at Thor questioningly. Unfortunately, the hesitation was enough for a mind as brilliant as Bruce’s and he shoved back from Loki with an angry sound.

“Banner, my friend,” Thor said gently, stepping forward and to pull the drape of cloth about him free, wrapping it about the man. “It is good to have you back. Loki has-”

“Stop it,” he demanded, ignoring Thor to glare up at Loki. “Stop pretending to be her, you _monster_.”

Loki stiffened, but then transformed back to his Aesir form with a harsh smile, folding his hands together. “Well, I can see my work here is done. I’ll leave you to it. Lovely to see you as always, Bruce.”

“Stay away from me,” Bruce said firmly, his jaw set in anger. “Or I _swear_ I’ll kill you.”

“I never tire of being threatened with death at the hands of my brother’s friends,” Loki replied lazily, then turned on his heel to go, feeling eyes at his back, yet not caring whose they were.

“You’re missing an eye.”

Thor tore his gaze from where Loki was walking away from them in some surprise, looking back at Bruce. “I…yes. Yes, I am.”

Nodding sullenly, Bruce pulled Thor’s cloak tighter about his person, looking weary. “Does that mean it’s been another two years since the last time I saw you?”

“Not so long at all, my friend. It has been but a handful of days since last we spoke,” Thor assured him.

“Then…we’re in Asgard?” Bruce wondered, looking around the mess bay in confusion. Catching sight of the Valkyrie standing beside him, he squinted up at her, then smiled. “Hey…it’s you.”

“And you,” she agreed. “In a sense, I suppose you _are_ in Asgard…”

“What remains of it,” Thor sighed, settling back on his heels. “The planet is lost, destroyed in the fires of Ragnarok as was foretold. But her people remain…we make now for Earth.”

“Earth…” Bruce repeated, somehow managing to sound both relieved and anxious at the thought. “I bet the other guy isn’t happy about that.” He looked Thor and Valkyrie over, then grimaced. “Sorry about your planet…it seemed nice? The Flat-Earther’s would have a field day if they’d seen it… Don’t ask, it’s stupid.”

Finally seeming to find comfort in his skin, Bruce stood slowly to better take in his surroundings as he held the clock about his naked form. “So this is...what, a spaceship?” he asked doubtfully. “You actually took the other guy on a spaceship? Are you _trying_ to get yourselves killed?”

“He’s not so terrible, you know,” Valkyrie smiled sharply, folding her arms. “He may be violent at times, but at least he’s never _cruel_.”

“You’re talking about Loki,” Bruce guessed, frowning. “You don’t know him like I do. The things he’s done, the things he’s capable of-“

“Don’t patronize me, I know full well he’s no hero,” she cut him off. “But in the brief time I’ve known him, I’ve seen him return after humiliating defeat to save his people. I’ve seen him play willing Executioner in the name of his King, allowing himself to be the catalyst that ended the world. And I’ve seen him stand before the only thing that seems to truly frighten him and bravely call you home.”

Cowed, Bruce rubbed a hand over the back of his neck wearily. “Maybe I was a little harsh.”

“Yes,” she agreed coolly. “And maybe _you_ -“ she pointed at Thor accusingly, “should have spoken in his defense.” Looking quite fed up at the pair of them, the Valkyrie snatched up a loaf of bread and some apples and stalked off.

“I don’t think she likes me much,” Bruce admitted, sounding rather put out by the thought.

“She has a friendship with the Hulk like none that I’ve seen,” Thor told him, though he still felt a bit numb with shock from the Valkyrie’s words.

Did she really see Loki as his Executioner, such as Hela had been to Odin? The thought chilled Thor to the core even as he felt shame burn in him that he’d not even considered the enormity of the task he’d so carelessly given to his brother. Loki had burned the world for Thor.

For five days Thor managed to avoid being alone with Loki, though his adoptive brother was never far from his thoughts, despite his determination to focus solely on Asgard. The god of thunder had tirelessly thrown himself into the affairs of his people, trying to be as fair and just a king as he could manage while they continued ever onward toward their destination. Even with the threat of the Hulk now neutralized by Loki’s trick, they remained unable to safely make jumps to shorten the journey, not with so many souls on board.

Thor had once been able to battle tirelessly for countless days on end and to celebrate for a week afterward, the need for sleep a fickle thing compared to valor and glory. Somehow now it was far more draining to constantly devote his waking moments to the wellbeing of his people, settling disputes and instilling hope and struggling to rebuild some form of government among the refugees. This was not the kingdom he had been trained to rule and Thor knew he was ill-prepared to take on such considerations as power and food and marauders in the unforgiving emptiness beyond their walls. It consumed so much of him that that even Thor’s dreams of sunlit grass and friends now passed beyond reach were not enough to restore him. He couldn’t help but feel that the ship was closing in on him, slowly crushing him down to nothing.

It was while he was staring out into the endless black abyss from the ‘throne’ they’d placed at the bow of the ship that Loki finally cornered him again, blessedly alone while the bulk of the ship slept. The trickster didn’t announce himself like any normal person would, of course, but instead the decorative, angular lines of the spacecraft and the emptiness beyond melted away suddenly into a sun-dappled forest. Thor sucked in a harsh breath as the ever present hum of machinery was replaced by the murmur of insects and birds, a gentle wind blowing through the leaves.

“ _Loki,_ ” he breathed out harshly, an ache in his chest. “Why must you do this to me?”

“Because it’s what you need,” Loki murmured into his ear, leaning over the back of the throne. “Even if you aren’t brave enough to ask for it.”

Thor pushed to his feet and turned to face the god of mischief, fully prepared to lay into him, but stopped when the illusion carried fully around him, the ship utterly hidden from view. A soft, desperate sound left his throat as he stared around the forest, unable to help himself staring even though he knew that Loki watched him. He turned in a slow circle to take it all in, breathing in the scent of loam and earth with a shudder. Loki stood before him when he ended his survey of it all and Thor stared at him, swallowing around the pain of longing.

“Loki…” he whispered, lifting a hand to cup the side of his neck. “I cannot…we _should_ not…”

“No? And why not?” Loki wondered, stepping closer to him so that Thor felt the warmth of his body through their clothing. “Why not _take_ what you so badly _need_.” He whispered the word against Thor’s lips, eliciting a shiver from him.

It was the easiest thing in the world to give in to the kiss, all of Thor’s reasoning and the surety that he would not pursue this madness slipping away in an instant. He clung to Loki and pulled the sorcerer to him, kissing him with as much desperate desire as he’d felt looking about at the forest the trickster had conjured for him. Feeling the throne brush the back of his calves, Thor remembered himself and broke the kiss with a gasp, shaking his head.

“We _cannot_ do this _here_ ,” he stressed, struggling to remember that they were not actually secluded in a forest, whatever his mind was telling him.

Loki gave him an annoyed look, his eyes narrowing before a mischievous glint shone in them and he grinned. “Of course not…we wouldn’t want your dear subjects to see their king not receiving his proper due.”

“Loki, you know that’s not what I-“ Thor grunted as he was shoved back onto his throne, glaring and then going very still when Loki knelt between his legs. “What are you doing?”

“Paying tribute to the king,” Loki said with a grin, sliding his hands up Thor’s thighs and pulling his hips to the edge of his seat.

Thor opened his mouth to protest, but his head fell back and he groaned instead as Loki leaned in to nuzzle at his waking arousal. He slid a hand into the trickster’s inky hair and held him away from his lap with a glare, even as nimble fingers sought to release him from the confines of his clothing.

“We are in _public_ ,” he hissed angrily, then shuddered through a moan when Loki wrapped a hand around the length of him.

“Then I suggest you be _quiet_ ,” Loki replied wickedly, stroking him slowly and pulling free of Thor’s suddenly slack fingers to press a kiss to the crown.

Gripping the sides of his throne so hard he felt the metal dent inward, Thor watched helplessly as Loki teased back the foreskin to run his tongue over the sensitive glans. He knew he could easily throw off the god of mischief if he truly wanted to, but he felt rooted by his desire, wanting this despite the trepidation. Gasping softly, he brought a hand to his mouth and bit at the knuckle to muffle the strangled moan that rose at the sight and feel of Loki’s teasing mouth sliding down over the length of his cock.

“Loki…” he breathed out, shuddering as his hips gave a little jerk.

“Oh snap, it looks just like a forest here!” Korg exclaimed excitedly as he stepped up onto the dais behind Thor. “Did you do all this?”

Thor’s eyes dropped to his lap in horror, only to find that Loki had vanished from view, along with his exposed cock, giving the illusion that he was simply sitting alone on his throne. His breath hitched as rage and lust warred in him and he swore he could feel the damn trickster grinning around him. Clearing his throat, he managed to casually elbow Loki in the head as he looked over his shoulder at Korg.

“No, I-“ his voice came out high and strangled as Loki gripped the base of him and sucked almost viciously. Thor coughed and tried again, “No, I didn’t. Loki made it.”

“That’s a nice present,” Korg said approvingly, putting his hands on his hips and looking around.

“Mm,” Thor grunted in a non-committal way, closing his eye and rubbing at his forehead. In his lap, Loki had worked his trousers open further and cupped at his sack, rolling the orbs slowly as the wet heat of mouth began sliding up and down over his aching arousal.

Korg considered him for a long moment, tilting his head. “It seems as though you’d like to sit here in quiet contemplation of nature and forget about how you’re floating through the endless void of space with all that remains of your species. Well I won’t disturb you, then,” the Kronan patted Thor’s shoulder with a rocky hand.

Thor managed to give Korg a strangled smile, nodding his head in gratitude. “Thank you, my friend,” he said in earnest, even as Loki mouthed at the head of his cock. He listened as the stone man’s heavy, echoing footsteps became more distant, then buried his hands in Loki’s hair, glaring at him even as the illusion broke to reveal his unrepentant expression.

“You _wretch_ ,” Thor hissed at him even as he pulled the sorcerer forward to thrust up into his mouth. Loki moaned around him in approval, fisting one hand loosely around the base of him as the other braced against the thunder god’s thigh. Grunting softly, Thor fucked into Loki’s mouth as much as he was able from his slouched position, his own mouth hanging open and panting as he whispered harshly to him, “It’s lucky you do have a silver tongue, Liesmith, because I’m half tempted to throw you out the nearest airlock.”

Loki’s green eyes sparked with challenge and he shuddered as he expended even more magic to slough off a doppelgänger, which moved to crouch beside the throne, murmuring into the king’s ear, “Is that all the great Thor Odinson has to offer? I think we can do better…” Reaching out, the doppelgänger’s fingers seemed to cup the back of the true Loki’s head and draw him deeper until Thor could feel himself pushing into the trickster’s throat.

Gasping, Thor’s head dropped back against his throne as the doppelgänger sighed pleasurably beside him. “That’s it…give me everything, Thor…” Loki whispered breathily as Thor moved his hips shallowly, seeking to reach ever deeper. “You are mine…you have _always_ been mine.”

“Loki!” he gasped out desperately and let out a strangled cry of pleasure even as his body jerked, emptying himself into the god of mischief.

Loki moaned around him in answer as he swallowed him down, pulling back to gasp for breath and stroke Thor’s cock until the king was spent and shied away from the touch on his sensitive flesh. Getting to his feet, the sorcerer’s doppelgänger vanished as he straddled the spent Thor, freeing his own arousal from where it had been pressed painfully against the seams of his trousers. Taking himself in hand, Loki worked himself over quickly as he looked intently down at Thor’s lax, flushed face. Thor tried to bring his hands to bear on the trickster, but Loki batted them away impatiently, already far too close to his end to entertain his touch.

Gripping the top of Thor’s tunic, Loki pulled it open and moaned as he came onto the golden flesh beneath him, marking Thor’s throat and chest and even part of his beard with his seed. Panting heavily, he tumbled onto the throne and slumped against Thor, tingling waves of pleasure continuing to wash over his body. Around them, the forest flickered as his illusion started to falter, and Thor could only hope that Loki’s mind for mischief was not so bold as to not keep them hidden as they recovered.

Such thoughts lay only at the distant edge of his mind, and Thor cupped Loki’s jaw and throat in his warm, wide hands and drew him in to a wet, languid kiss. For several long, breathless moments Loki allowed this until the tenderness began to rankle and he slowly pulled away. Rubbing his thumb over the soft, golden whiskers of Thor’s beard, Loki smiled, looking very satisfied by the mess he’d made of him.

“Long live the king.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: Mild blood play, dub-con due to alcohol, voyeurism without consent, themes of dominance and possessive behavior, exhibitionism without consent...Loki is pretty much full of consent issues. Mentions of past Jane/Thor.


	2. Anchored

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your response! It was a bit overwhelming, honestly. I'm terribly sorry not to have replied to your comments, but writing explicitly makes me _breathtakingly_ shy. Know that I have read them all and used the encouragement ~~and alcohol~~ to push past my delicate sensibilities.
> 
> That this fic references events from the Thor and Avengers movies should go without saying, but this part also references events from Guardians of the Galaxy. Warnings are available once more in the end notes.
> 
> Visit me on [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/godofhammers-ao3)!

The _Foundation_ was not large enough for Thor and Loki both. Actually, it was entirely possible that the _galaxy_ could not successfully contain the pair. So it only stood to reason that Thor was simply going to have to commit fratricide in the name of his own sanity…and also _revenge_. In fact, now was the perfect time to reassemble the Revengers.

Following Loki’s ‘tribute to the king’, the trickster had taken time to set them both to rights with apparent tender care, if overly tactile in the restoration of Thor’s breeches. With a final, lingering kiss, Loki had left him sitting on his throne with a low promise of, “Until next time, my king.” Naturally, Thor had been feeling cautiously trusting and affectionate toward Loki when he was inevitably betrayed.

“Oh, hey, Thor! Still sitting in solemn kingly contemplation, I see,” Korg greeted with quiet cheerfulness. “I was just going to show Miek here the forest your brother gave you, but I see now that won’t be possible.” He used the insectoid, still rather helpless without a mechanical suit to pilot, to gesture around at the illusion-free ship. “Seems to have been one of those ghost forests.”

“I apologize, my friend,” Thor told him, pushing to his feet. He still felt a bit flustered to think about how Loki’s mouth had been upon him when last he’d seen Korg. “My brother’s magic is powerful indeed, but by no means limitless.”

“It really is too bad he can’t magic a hole through space and bring the ship to a real forest,” Korg said regretfully. Tilting his head, he regarded Thor curiously, then leaned forward. “So…is that some sort of protoplasm you’ve got there on your neck…or sperm?” Thor felt a wave of horror wash over him as Korg gestured toward Thor’s throat. “Looks like sperm.”

Because of course…of _course_ Loki would play the part of a caring lover only to leave his claim writ in crude clarity upon his flesh for all to see. Thor still couldn’t look Korg in the face, though it had been days since the incident and the Kronan seemed entirely unaffected. His horrible trickster of a brother had wisely been keeping out of reach in that time, though his eyes were always on Thor whenever they were in the same room, bright with laughter and desire in equal measure. The urge to kill him or kiss him varied from moment to moment.

Thor finally caught the sorcerer alone nearly a week later, standing in an alcove off an empty passageway with his head bowed over something in his hand. Without a thought to whether his actions could be considered in any way wise, he crept up behind Loki and lunged to catch hold of him, one hand to his throat as he bound him in up in a tight hold.

“I have you now, _snake_ ,” Thor grunted in his ear.

If he expected Loki to jump or curse or even tense up, Thor was sorely disappointed, though he wouldn’t dare to voice such a thing aloud. The god of mischief leaned back into him instead, tilting back his head with a smile.

“You like snakes,” he reminded him in a breathy rasp and Thor eased the grip of his fingers at the pale column of his throat. “Were you trying to be stealthy? I think that green beast of yours could manage better.”

With a hiss, Thor shoved Loki away from him when the devious god began rolling his hips sinuously back into him, scowling even as his body began to react in kind. “Must everything be a game with you?”

Turning to face him, Loki leaned up against the wall of the alcove and smiled seductively. “Not always,” he commented idly, then reached out to pull Thor in.

His mouth was wicked against Thor’s, coaxing at him until he gave into the touch of his lips after only a moment’s stubborn hesitation. Though he pressed into the sorcerer, pinning him against the bulkhead, Loki’s kiss was unhurried and languid, his long fingers rubbing slow designs over Thor’s scalp in such a way that he found himself shivering with the sensation. He had no idea how much time had passed before he broke the kiss in sharp surprise as the ship’s alarms began to blare throughout the corridor.

“Sometimes,” Loki continued a bit breathlessly, running a hand through his own dark locks with a satisfied hum. “It’s a distraction.”

“What-“ Thor began, looking around when Korg’s voice came over the mass communication system.

“ _Hello. Yes. Korg here, guys. It looks like there might be a fire going on down in the seventh…floor? Is that the right word? No, that’s right, it’s deck. Seventh deck. So…we should probably put that out._ ”

“Eighteen minutes,” Loki murmured to himself, checking the small tablet he held, same as he’d been doing before Thor had caught hold of him. “That’s just embarrassing.”

Thor frowned in confusion, then gripped him by the arms warningly, his brows furrowed deeply. “Loki…” he growled at him. “What have you done?”

“Weren’t you listening, brother? I started a fire, obviously,” he replied with an infuriatingly unconcerned air. Running his eyes over the agitated god, Loki smirked and pressed a thigh up against the swell of his partial erection. “In more ways than one, it seems.”

It honestly seemed rather ridiculous for Thor to be in any way surprised, but the thought of Loki having committed _arson_ in the _total vacuum of space_ was so ludicrous that he gaped at him. “You…you’re…” Thor was beyond the words to describe what he was feeling, his throat working.

He felt a sudden deep longing for Mjolnir such as he’d not felt since before the fall of Asgard, wanting nothing more than to use the weight of her to pin Loki to the spot until he could find the time to untangle the madness that had clearly taken his brother. At a loss, he settled for simply growling at Loki in frustration and shaking him as though he could knock the lunacy from him, then releasing the trickster to turn on his heel.

“Wait, where are you going?” Loki demanded when he began jogging down the corridor, catching up to him and pulling at his arm.

“To put out your _damned fire_ , Loki!” he ground out angrily, pulling away from him. “And afterward I’m going to find somewhere to lock you away before you cause any further damage!”

“ _Ah, excellent!_ ” Korg chirped into the intercom. “ _Someone has managed to find a bucket. Good job, you!_ ”

“Don’t be ridiculous, it’s just a fire. You are _king_ , Thor. You can’t just run around the ship solving every little problem yourself. You aren’t their _nursemaid_ ,” Loki said firmly, blocking his path. “Taking on every insignificant burden they thrust upon you does nothing to further them.”

“No, you’re right, I should just go and fetch my bathrobe so I can watch the ship _burn_ more comfortably,” Thor sniped at him, shoving at his chest. “Do you suppose we have grapes on board?”

Loki stepped back just enough that he didn’t lose his footing when Thor pushed at him, smiling almost cruelly. “Ah, here it is. Does it still burn to know that Asgard flourished in my reign? Why not just admit how much it angers you to have been played the fool _again?_ ”

“ _Damn. Sorry all, looks like that bucket wasn’t quite enough to do the job. Excellent effort though, I think we can all agree on that,”_ Korg commented, oblivious to their argument.

“ _You let me think you were dead!_ ” Thor roared, lunging forward and shoving the trickster up against the unforgiving bulkhead. Electricity burned in his single blue eye, whiting out his vision even as his breath came harshly between his teeth, shaking with rage and agony in equal measure. “I held you in my arms,” he ground out harshly, the echo of thunder in his throat. “I watched your life leech away…felt you go cold.” The storm of his fury broke and he released Loki, turning away from him and closing his eye against the ache in his heart, feeling the pain and sadness as though it were newly burdened there once more. “You made me believe you were _dead_.”

For a span of seconds, there was only silence, cold and empty between them, then Thor felt the warmth of him, the wonderful burning _life_ of his supposed brother’s body at his back. Slowly, almost hesitantly, Loki placed a single hand on the span of his shoulder and lowered his forehead to rest against him. “I thought I was,” he breathed out, the admission so soft that Thor wasn’t sure he didn’t imagine it.

“ _Look at that! Our very own Scrapper One-Four-Two is on the scene now and- Oh, was that fire suppressant system there the whole time?_ ” Korg wondered aloud and Loki pulled away from Thor, leaving him standing alone in the corridor.

Things had _not_ gone according to plan. It was unsurprising, because if nothing else, Thor was always just so good at spoiling all of Loki’s machinations. Actually, if he were to be honest with himself, his plan had gone perfectly, in that now the entire ship was painfully aware of how unprepared they were to handle an actual emergency. But where he’d expected to watch in smug satisfaction as everyone scrambled to figure out how to prepare their crew of refugees for damage control, Loki instead found his mood turned sour.

He shouldn’t have given that small bit of honesty to Thor. It totally undermined everything of their years apart and had painted him with a vulnerable pigment…an admission of _weakness_. Before long he was going to end up falling over himself to explain how he’d originally tried to be a ‘good’ king in Asgard just to spite Odin and Thor both, only he’d grown so painfully _bored_ having to hide his nature behind the guise of his false father. The fact that Loki had _wanted_ to lure Thor back home through his neglect of the Nine Realms was a truth he didn’t even want to acknowledge to himself, much less his adoptive brother. It wasn’t as though Loki hadn’t known that Skurge was in fact the worst possible choice of Gatekeeper in all of Asgard. There were times he wondered whether his willingness to choose humor over wisdom was causation or correlation of his being named god of mischief so long ago.

Distracted as he was by his own inner turmoil, Loki barely reacted in time to keep from getting stabbed when the Valkyrie came for him. Truthfully, if not for the way she so often decided to ‘spar’ with him now, he might not have blocked the path of her blade with so little conscious thought as he did.

“Why are you setting _fire_ to my _ship?_ ” she growled at him, dropping her knife from one hand to the other to swipe at him again.

Loki leapt backward to dodge the blade and conjured his own at the ready. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he lied reflexively. “And since when is this _your_ ship? I seem to remember being the one to steal it.”

“I gave up my _Warsong_ for your brother,” she grunted as Loki kneed her in the abdomen, ramming the hilt of her dagger into his hip in retaliation. “I _loved_ that ship. I certainly don’t want the _Commodore_ to make up for her loss, so that leaves the _Statesman_. Or whatever it is they’re calling her now.”

Sweeping his legs, the Valkyrie straddled him quickly, kneeling painfully on his elbows and leaning forward to keep out of the reach of his legs. She put her knife to his throat and gave him a fierce look. “That fire was set so that it _should_ have been noticed right away, were anyone paying proper attention, yet in an area where it wouldn’t do any real harm if left alone,” she said pointedly. “And somehow it didn’t spread outward from where it began, almost as if it by _magic_. So let me ask you again… _why_ are you setting fire to _my ship?_ ”

Loki struggled briefly, then simply grinned up at her and opened his hands in surrender, knives vanishing. “Would you rather have found out how incompetent they were in an actual emergency?”

Rolling her eyes, the Valkyrie sat back on him, easing the painful pressure off his joints. “Why can’t you just make helpful suggestions like a _normal_ person?”

“How tedious and small-minded. It’s not in my nature to be so monotonous as that.”

She jabbed at him in annoyance and sighed heavily, shaking her head. “Save me from the ‘nature’ of the Aesir and Vanir…you all understand that you aren’t _actually_ cosmic deities, don’t you?”

“Thor and Hela certainly made a fair show of it,” he commented dryly.

Scoffing, she rose up off of him and offered the trickster a hand up, sheathing her dagger. “Hela was an _abomination_ , not a goddess. Honestly I’m not certain that Odin’s whole line isn’t a little more monster than man, but then the Aesir have always been the most peculiar of the Asgardians.”

“I’m _not_ an Aesir,” Loki said stiffly.

“So you’ve pointed out. Repeatedly. I’ve heard some of the others say you’re a Jötun, but you don’t look like any I’ve ever seen,” she said, looking him over with a considering gaze.

“Yes, well…it would seem that I am a disappointment no matter who claims me,” he replied scathingly. “If we’re finished here, I have other business to attend to.”

“Please, we both know you left as soon as I let you up. I won’t be training a damage control team on my own, Loki,” she said, pointing a finger at him.

His doppelgänger only smiled at the Valkyrie, equally impressed and annoyed by her. “Why not? It’s _your_ ship, after all,” he reminded her. With an echoing laugh, the illusion of him faded away in a wave of gold.

“I’m used to handling big, green problems, Loki!” she called out in the empty corridor after him. “See that you don’t find yourself needing to be _handled_.”

“Five thousand commoners,” Thor read out, looking over the report Heimdall had given him. “Thirty-three hundred tradespeople, nearly a thousand men and women learned in some form of science, another five hundred trained in the arts, two hundred and sixty members of nobility and a score of low-level guards that managed to survive Hela and her draugr. Plus our handful of gladiators and lone Midgardian.”

“In a base summary, yes,” Heimdall intoned steadily. “That is an estimate of all those we rescued from Asgard.”

“And next to none with real experience in space travel,” Thor sighed, tracing the edge of his eyepatch in what was becoming a nervous habit.

“There are some who used to deal in transport or off-world mining operations, as well as a dozen or so shipbuilders and engineers. But it is true that the vast majority have never left Asgard before now, and many of their skills serve little purpose without land or resources. Your people are brave and true, my king,” the former Gatekeeper told him plainly. “But with each day the sense of danger passes and the agitation borne of idleness rises.”

“You may as well say it plainly, Heimdall…the people are growing bored and restless,” he said, shaking his head. “And I can’t say that I blame them.”

“The training and drills that the Valkyrie leads her damage control teams in will help some. She already has far more volunteers than she can train at once.”

Thor’s jaw went tight at the mention of the teams, remembering the actions that had led to their inception. “Everyone has to be trained if we’re to survive an actual casualty,” Thor said firmly, swiping across the tablet he held to go to the next report. “Those who master her drills can begin training their own teams.”

Heimdall nodded his agreement and waited silently as Thor read through the next report, his arms folded stoically across his chest. He knew the exact moment the king read the estimates on the resources required to reach Earth, for his storm blue eye flew up in shock.

“These projections…you’re sure?” Thor asked with trepidation.

“Yes, my king,” he affirmed solemnly. “We do not have enough rations to complete the journey to your Earth. The _Foundation_ was well-stocked, better than we could have hoped for given the situation…but your people are many. Had we been more stringent at the start then perhaps we might have just managed, but it is doubtful.”

“Then we make for a port and buy more. There must be one that won’t take us too far off our course.”

“You’re going to have bigger problems than hunger if you stop at a spaceport, brother,” Loki remarked as he strode into the room.

“I’ve no time for games right now, Loki,” Thor said warningly, his body going tense with awareness of the other. “Speak plainly or not at all.”

Loki held up his hands peaceably, his green eyes bright with amusement. “I’m only trying to avoid a messy death. Need I remind you that we are currently standing in the belly of the Grandmaster’s crown jewel? And supposing he did not survive the little rebellion you helped to start, do you really think no one has yet taken notice of the new _asteroid field_ where once Asgard stood? We have fallen to the bottom of the food chain, brother…and the scavengers will be circling.”

“He is correct, my king,” Heimdall agreed stonily, as though it pained him to agree with anything that Loki said. “Asgard still has many enemies and even our allies will be moving to fill the void of power our absence will have inadvertently created.”

Thor put his head in a hand and tried not to feel as though the walls were closing in around him. It would take more than a year for them to reach Earth. Even if they managed to cross the vast expanse of space without encountering marauders, scavengers or literal armies seeking profit or vengeance, they would still starve. They didn’t even have anything resembling an _escort_ to defend-

“The Nova Corps,” he said suddenly, barely breathing. “We could reach out to the Nova Corps.” He looked up at them and caught Loki gazing at him with an almost _hungry_ expression that sent a line of heat down his spine. Apparently this was not his worst plan ever.

Heimdall turned to one of the consoles and began tapping at it. “We’re out of range of communication with them right now. If we used relays it would give away our position to anyone listening for us.”

“I can do it,” Loki said confidently. “I’ll need some time to prepare, but I can do it. So long as you’re willing to point me in the right direction, my dear Gatekeeper.” Heimdall didn’t look pleased by the prospect, but he inclined his head in agreement.

Thor got to his feet, feeling something very close to hope blossoming in his chest. “In the meantime, I’ve got a council to build,” he said determinedly. “If just our small meeting of minds can come up with what’s been our best chance of survival thus far, a full council might just bring us out of danger entirely. Tell me when you’ve made contact.” It came out as an order without conscious thought and he saw Loki’s lips curve into a devious smile.

“As my king commands…” he replied softly, his voice full of promise.

In truth Loki only needed to be fed and well-rested before he could reach out to Xandar, but he had no intention of rushing to complete his task. After all, it wouldn’t do for Thor to think he had merely to snap his fingers to receive all that he desired, regardless of how good an idea it was. Loki rather enjoyed the feeling of being needed for something only _he_ could provide. However much he’d like to deny it, anyone could provide physical comfort to Thor, even if they would do a poor job of it. But this…this was a task specific to his abilities and that greatly appealed to him.

He found the idea of the council far less pleasing, even if it were practical to the nature of their situation. Politics would provide distraction for the masses, even if it produced no result, but Loki disliked the thought of Thor bending his ear to the collection of _peasants_ he was growing. The nobility, the traders, the blacksmiths, the shipbuilders, the masons, the healers, the _farmers_ …all of the various classes and guilds of occupation were invited to put forth a member into Thor’s new council, as though they were somehow worthy of sharing a table with a king. It was _maddening_.

Worse still it had been near impossible to catch Thor alone while he was caught up in selecting the final candidates of his council. Loki suspected Heimdall’s influence there, if it wasn’t Thor himself hiding behind the excuse. Regardless…it was effective. After receiving an overwhelming number of candidates when he’d given his people the task of choosing among their number, Thor had decided that the final count would be nine. One for each of the nine realms of Yggdrasill…the King of Asgard was so droll at times.

Opportunity came the morning before the first council meeting was to take place, just when Loki was starting to get impatient enough to consider completing his task just so Thor would have no choice but to acknowledge him. Leaving the mess hall, he very nearly ran into the god of thunder on his way in. They stopped and stared at the other and Loki smiled wickedly to see Thor’s eye widen, inspiration striking like…well, like lightning. Stepping in close, he lay his palm flat over the hard plane of Thor’s abdomen, smoothing over the soft leather as his fingers wound the spell in place. Still holding his gaze, Loki pushed outward and sank the hooks of his magic into Thor’s mind.

Leaning in close to him, Loki stopped just shy of their lips meeting, still smiling. “Good morning,” he said amicably.

“Loki…” Thor ground out softly, and the apprehension in his tone belied the desire in his gaze. He could hear Thor swallow, but the god of thunder remained frozen in place, watching him.

Loki hummed and let his fingers trail a path below his navel, then slid past him as though there were no tension between them at all. “I’ll see you at the council meeting,” he promised from over his shoulder. Loki was suddenly looking forward to it after all.

It was ridiculous to think that after everything he had faced, the idea of sitting in a room and talking with eight other people had Thor’s insides twisted into discomforted knots. But battles and great feats of valor were far easier than the intricacies of politics. A wrong word here could very well turn their tenuous situation into one of discord. Taking a slow, calming breath outside the room they’d chosen to be their meeting place, Thor closed his eye and reminded himself that they were all here to work toward a common goal. This was for the well-being of Asgard…he had to trust that everyone here was focused on that task.

He looked into the room as the door slid open, seeing the rest of the council already seated about the table, though they rose as he entered, fists to their chest in greeting. Heimdall had been the first nominated by the people, though Thor had always intended to have him there, despite the Gatekeeper’s hesitation. Surprisingly, Loki had also been nominated in force, which Thor had _not_ been planning, giving the trickster’s penchant for brewing trouble. Still, despite the havoc he’d been causing Thor with his less-than brotherly attentions, he had been largely helpful since Sakaar. Thor had asked Bruce to sit in as a representative of Earth, but the scientist had refused, citing that he wasn’t in the right ‘headspace’ to be making those kinds of calls. The Valkyrie had similarly refused because she wanted ‘fuck all’ to do with Asgardian politics. Korg, however, had been all too pleased to join in on the talks and promised not to start any rebellions without talking to Thor about it first.

The remaining seats of the council went to Idunn, in the interest of all forms of agriculture; Eir, for the healers and other Asgardians who blended technology with seidr; Balder, one of the few great warriors to have survived Hela’s attack; Hoder, the oldest of them and rumored to possess the gift of foresight, though he was completely blind; and the Grand Vizier, who had been advisor to his father for many years. Of these, he trusted the Grand Vizier least, but the nobility had been unanimous in their choice, wanting to ensure their interests would be protected under their new upstart of a king, Thor suspected. Thor looked at each of them in turn as he came to his seat at the table, noting with displeasure that Loki had taken the chair directly across from him. That hardly boded well.

“Thank you all for agreeing to this,” he began after they had sat down again. “The path ahead is perilous and fraught with all manner of potential for failure, but by working together I’m sure we can-“

Whatever Thor was about to say left his mind entirely when he caught sight of himself standing across from where he sat, clad only in a small, ill-fitting robe. Not even a proper Asgardian robe, but something flimsy and soft that would be far better suited to...now that he was looking at it more closely, Thor was almost certain that robe belonged to Jane. The sight was so startling that he simply gaped for entirely too long, so that some of the council members shifted and followed his gaze uncertainly. Realizing no one else appeared to be staring at the illusion, Thor dropped his gaze, looking over the reports before him and straightening them as he cleared his throat.

 _Loki._ Of course it was Loki. That no one else could see meant that he had been caught in one of his damn spells, but when had he- Remembering the way the trickster had brushed against him in passing that morning, the way their eyes had held for too long and the heat of his hand even through his leather tunic, Thor realized he must have been ensnared then. How much of this was real now?

“My king?” Balder asked in mild concern.

“My apologies, I appear to have lost the thread of my mind’s weaving. I’ve spent too much of my life a man of action rather than words, but I can no longer afford such _reckless behavior_ ,” he said, stressing the last as he tried to look through the illusion to where Loki had been sitting previously.

Instead, gloved and gauntleted hands slid around his doppelgänger’s torso to stroke over his chest and the false Thor leaned into it with a soft grunt of pleasure, his head falling back to bare his throat in submission. Loki, who was fully clad in his golden armor, pressed his lips to the false Thor’s neck possessively and one hand smoothed down the front of the robe to pass into the overlapping fabric at his waist, cupping him and eliciting a deeper moan.

Loki nosed along a bearded jaw to murmur into his doppelgänger’s ear and Thor stiffened when he heard it as clearly as though the trickster’s lips were against his own. “Shall I have you before your assembled court, my king?”

Clearing his throat, Thor determinedly dropped his gaze and focused on the matter at hand. “You’ve all been provided copies of our current status and the projections of what will be required to reach Midgard in the coming year. Loki believes he can contact Xandar to elicit the help of the Nova Corps with Heimdall’s aid, but we have to be prepared to fend for ourselves.”

“It is a good idea,” Loki whispered into his ear and Thor heard his double hiss with pleasure. His eye flicked upward despite himself in time to see the trickster scrape his nails over a hardened nipple through the thin fabric of the robe. “A plan worthy of a king.”

“What would the Nova Corps ask in return for their assistance?” the Grand Vizier asked doubtfully. “Surely Asgard need not debase ourselves even further by flaunting our current status.”

“There is no chance the universe at large is not fully aware of our status,” Loki spoke to the room this time, though to Thor’s sight he said it while moving his hand slowly over the doppelgänger’s length, hidden under the fold of the robe. “But the Nova Corps are too determined to be seen as intergalactic peacekeepers to take advantage of our weakened state. Helping us would only further their goals.”

“I agree,” Eir said softly, folding her hands on the table before her. “Seeking the protection of the Nova Corps is our best chance for survival.”

“Whether or not you all agree, that is the course we shall take,” Thor said firmly and out of the corner of his eye he caught Loki reward his illusion by biting at his throat, drawing a guttural sound that Thor was _certain_ he had never made before. That did nothing to dissuade the growing heaviness between his own legs, however. “I’ve gathered you together to determine how we can last should we be unsuccessful in our attempt to bring about Xandarian aid.”

“I was able to save only a few Apples of Immortality in the fall of Asgard,” Idunn admitted, lowering her gaze. “I can give the flesh to those weakest among our number, but it is imperative that I preserve the seeds if I am to try and restore the orchard on Midgard.”

“The weakest?” the Grand Vizier sputtered indignantly. “We cannot afford to be so sentimental now! They should go to those most important to Asgard’s future!”

There was a thump heard only by Thor as his doppelgänger was bent over the table, panting heavily as Loki pinned him there with a hand at the back of his neck. “And I suppose you consider yourself one of those people, do you?” Loki asked the Grand Vizier sarcastically. With his other hand, he shoved up the back of the robe to expose the false Thor, running an appreciative hand over the curve of his backside.

“Why you impertinent-“

“Perhaps they should be saved for the strongest, in case we are attacked,” Balder suggested over the Grand Vizier’s spluttering, brow furrowed in concern.

“We ought not take any action that might put the seeds at risk,” Holder warned in his dusty, wheezing voice.

“Apples alone will not save the people of Asgard,” Heimdall broke in calmly. “We must think bigger than these petty squabbles.”

“Yes,” Loki agreed, taking hold of his glove by the teeth and pulling it off roughly. “For example, we could discuss how the nobility have managed to utilize nearly ten percent of our fresh water reserves in a manner of weeks.”

“You cannot seriously be suggesting that the nobility live in _filth_ ,” the Grand Vizier protested.

Thor’s mouth went dry as he watched Loki hum considering around his own fingers, before lowering them to press teasingly at the vision of flesh before him. “I’m suggesting that they use grey water, just like everyone else on board.”

The old Asgardian looked nearly apoplectic at the thought of the noble houses of Asgard utilizing _recycled_ water to cleanse themselves. While he was speechless with shock and disgust, Eir broke in again in her quiet, reserved way.

“We cannot use grey water for healing,” she said.

“Nor can we consume it,” Idunn added. “We must save as much fresh water as possible, especially if we are to try and grow any crops on board.”

“Growing gardens in the cold reaches of space…is such a thing possible?” Balder asked.

“With soil and sunlight, anything is possible,” Idunn assured him. “We will pass any number of worlds where we might find soil and perhaps fresh water as well.”

“Sorry, if we’re going to be stopping at a planet, couldn’t we just pick up more food instead?” Korg asked sensibly. “I’ve got two hands and strong legs, so I figure I can carry a lot of vegetables or maybe a couple pigs? Not really sure what all you non-perishable rock types like to eat, seeing how I don’t actually need to do that myself.”

The council all stared at the Kronan, all but Thor, who had completely lost the thread of conversation. He hadn’t been able to tear his eyes away from the tableau before him as Loki used his fingers to work his doppelgänger open, drawing grunts and groans that sounded pained but were clearly anything but, given the expression on his own mirrored face. Loki in turn had kept his eyes on the real Thor, his lips curved in the barest of smiles.

“Do you see how easily your body will open to me, Thor? How it begs to be taken…to be claimed?” Loki murmured to him.

Thor stood up abruptly, drawing the council’s attention back to him. “Loki,” he said roughly, ignoring the flush of heat at the back of his neck. “I must speak with you.”

“Of course, my king,” Loki replied with a mocking smile, withdrawing his hands from the false Thor, who moaned piteously at the loss before fading from view.

Glad for the concealment his leather tunic afforded him, Thor turned and walked from the room, ignoring the painful twinge where he was still trapped by his breeches. Behind him, he heard Korg comment to the others, “Oh good! I bet they’ve already got a planet in mind, yeah? So…do we keep talking without them, or…”

Whether or not the council did decide to keep discussing the matters at hand, Thor didn’t know, for their voices were cut off as the door slid shut behind Loki. Whirling angrily, Thor was fully prepared to lay into him over the utter _indignity_ of his actions, but the look on the trickster’s face stilled the breath in his throat. Gone was the illusion of golden armor and grandeur, but Loki was no less terrible and beautiful in his simple garb of black and green and an expression of pure, naked _want_ on his face. When Loki came for him, Thor met him readily despite himself, gasping into his mouth as he was manhandled backward and pushed through another door. A maintenance closet? He neither knew nor cared where it led, so long as Loki’s mouth remained on his own.

Clever, wicked fingers worked open his clothing easily, shoving it open to stroke and grasp at his flesh covetously. Pushing him back Loki swept his eyes over Thor heatedly and then turned him around roughly so that he had to catch himself against the smooth black wall there. Seeing a glimpse of his own wrecked expression reflected back at him in the shiny overlay, Thor closed his eye and swallowed thickly, pressing his forehead against the cool surface. His breath caught again at the feel of air on his exposed flesh as Loki unceremoniously shoved his breeches down to his thighs, tensing with trepidation.

“Loki…” he whispered, unsure if it were a plea to stop or continue.

“Hush,” Loki said softly, pressing his lips to the back of Thor’s neck. “I won’t fuck you in a _kitchenette,_ Thor…” Fingers slid across his mouth, then pushed inside and Thor moaned softly around them, shuddering. “I want to take my time with you…to lay you out and _ruin_ you for anyone else.”

Pulling his fingers free, Loki’s hand wrapped around him, squeezing his cock and stroking over the length of it almost leisurely. Thor could feel the firm heat of the trickster’s own arousal still bound by clothing and rolled his hips, his breath coming in short pants. A pleased moan rumbled through Loki’s chest where it pressed against his back and he gripped at Thor’s hip with his other hand, thrusting against him and stroking his heated flesh in turn.

“The council, the populace, your _friends…_ ” Loki hissed, teeth bared and pressed to his neck. “ _None_ of them are worthy of you… _none_ of them deserve to see you this way. Even now I keep you from Heimdall’s meddling gaze…shroud you from all who might steal you from me.” He slid his hand up from Thor’s hip to his chest, the fingers spread wide and possessive over the thundering of his heart. “You are _mine_.”

Ozone lay heavy on Thor’s tongue as crackles of electricity arched down his arms and across his fingertips where they splayed over the smooth black panel. There was no atmosphere here, no call of the storm in his heart, yet he could feel the need to release it gather low in the cradle of his hips even as he thrust into the glide of Loki’s palm, his honeyed words burning through him.

“ _Loki_ ,” he gasped again, the rumble of distant thunder echoing in the rough timbre of his voice.

“My king,” Loki whispered in answer and bit at the base of his neck, marking him, _claiming_ him.

The world flashed white as the tenuous hold on his power broke, the lights and delicate electronics of the kitchenette bursting at the surge of energy that sparked outward from Thor’s hands, snapping and crackling loudly. He was only distantly aware of Loki stroking him through his orgasm as his hips jerked, viscous fluid marring the pristine black panel. The room went dark, lit only by a coruscation that danced outward from the splay of his hands and died.

Loki released him and Thor sank to his knees, his body shivering and loose from his release, almost numb from the exertion of energy after being held so long inside. Feeling the warmth of his adoptive brother at his back, he leaned back into it, head lolling back against Loki’s thigh as he heard the rustle of fabric and then the quick slide of skin on skin. Fingers carded through his hair and Thor groaned softly, turning his face toward the sound of Loki seeking his own pleasure. He could see nothing in the blackness of the room, but he could feel the heat radiating off of him and scent his arousal as he breathed in. Tilting his head, his lips found the curve of Loki’s fingers around his cock and the trickster gasped and shuddered as he found his release, his other hand tightening in Thor’s hair.

They stayed like that for a few long moments, Thor anchored by Loki’s fingers stroking through his hair in a gentle caress that was hidden in the darkness of the room before the secondary lighting flickered and rose. Either the engineers or the automated systems had managed to fix whatever it was Thor had damaged. Blinking as his eye adjusted to the light, Thor’s body woke from the pleasant numbness he’d drifted in, chilled where he was exposed. A flush rose across his chest and throat to see the evidence of their pleasure displayed on the wall before him, obvious on the shiny obsidian.

It seemed Loki had noticed it as well as he idly drew his nails over Thor’s scalp in a way that sent shivers of sensation down his spine. “You ought to clean up the mess you made,” he commented idly, fingers pressing lightly at the base of his skull.

For a moment, Thor imagined doing just that, Loki gripping his hair and guiding him as he leaned forward and used the flat of his tongue to clear away the remains of their tryst. His pride balked at the idea and he pushed away from Loki, coming to his feet unsteadily and glaring at his languidly amused expression.

“You go too far, trickster,” he warned, though the effect was somewhat lessened by the way his clothing hung open to display him from throat to thigh.

Loki’s eyes ran over him appreciatively, then sighed as Thor began setting himself to rights. “As you say, my king,” he crooned, though his smile was mocking. With a wave of his hand, the wall was pristine again and his own appearance set to rights as though nothing had happened.

“You cannot keep doing this, Loki,” Thor said gruffly, his ears burning a little with awareness of what they’d done. “We have greater matters at hand to attend to.”

“It’s me alone, then, is it?” Loki asked challengingly, his smile going sharp and dangerous. “Am I forcing you, Thor? Are you a _victim_ of my dark intrigues?”

Thor’s throat worked and he looked away shamefully after a long moment of tense silence. “ _We_ cannot keep doing this,” he corrected softly. “The literal fate of our world hangs by a tenuous thread even now.”

The god of mischief seemed to soften by degrees back into good humor and he inclined his head peaceably, if sardonically. “As my king commands.”

Xandar truly was an attractive planet, for all that it was nearly destroyed in the wake of a Kree fanatic some years past. To Loki’s eyes, gold with stolen sight, the clean lines and carefully manicured gardens all but begged to be torn asunder once more. To succumb to the terrible beauty of entropy and chaos. It was possible he still had a few latent desires toward world domination.

Loki walked unseen along the pale stone pathways and felt Heimdall trying to see alongside him, but he kept the other in the dark as he made his way to the Nova Corps Headquarters at a leisurely pace. He could simply appear within its walls, but for all that he exploited Thor’s reticience toward space travel, he would be lying to say that it did not affect him as well. His sorcery was almost good enough to make Loki believe that he truly was basking in the light of three suns, instead of mentally projecting his soul across lightyears. Already he could feel the strain on his power and with a regretful sigh, he walked toward the austere building with greater purpose.

It was no trouble at all to locate Irani Rael within the confines of her domain. The white-haired woman had all the inevitable magnetism of a star, pulling in the rest of the Nova Corps about her with the sheer gravitas of her will. Loki watched her admiringly for some time, until the command of her began calling to mind the memory of Odin and he stepped forward to reveal himself.

“Nova Prime,” he entreated with utmost civility, ignoring the shouts of surprise as dutiful soldiers needlessly drew their weapons. “I am Loki of Asgard.”

“I’m well aware of who you are, Loki Laufeyson,” Irani said coolly, her voice like steel and totally unruffled by his sudden appearance. “You’ve managed to come to a great deal more attention over the past decade than in the centuries before…most recently when you rose from the grave and managed to vex one of the most powerful men in the known universe. I hear the Grandmaster has quite the bounty out on your head.”

That was unfortunate, if not unexpected. “An unpleasant necessity, I’m afraid. He was holding the rightful King of Asgard prisoner.”

“So the rumors are true…Odin truly is gone,” she said, folding her arms pensively. “I should have expected that you would survive the destruction of Asgard. Or were you the cause of it?”

Loki smiled placidly, though he was annoyed at the way she directed the conversation just as she did everything else about her. “It was a complicated situation, Nova Prime. I come to you now not on my own behalf, but on that of my _king_.” He stressed the word, hoping to turn her attention away from his own crimes. “Thor Odinson, King of Asgard, yet lives, as do some ten thousand Asgardian refugees that managed to escape Asgard’s destruction.”

Irani looked at him searchingly, tapping a gloved finger at her jaw before she gestured to the men and women around her, who lowered their weapons with reluctant obeisance. “I believe you,” she decided and beckoned him forward, turning to lead him away into the privacy of her office. “The readings we managed to recover from one of our outposts suggested that a large carrier-class star cruiser left Asgardian space just after its destruction.”

“The _Foundation_ ,” Loki agreed, coming to stand at the windows of her office and looking out onto the city below. “Formerly assigned the designation of _Statesman_ by the Grandmaster.”

“Descriptions of it may have been mentioned in the bounty we intercepted,” she said, pouring herself a small glass of vividly green liquid. “What happened to Asgard?”

“Having your thumb to the pulse of the universe as you seem to, I imagine you’ve heard rumors of Ragnarok a time or two,” Loki speculated. “The end of Asgard was inevitable…and necessary, as it turned out. A sacrifice for the greater good, and all that entails.”

“I see. And what of the Tesseract?” she wondered, taking a slow sip of her drink.

Loki turned to look at her, raising an eyebrow. “My but you _are_ well-informed, aren’t you? You weren’t made Nova Prime without reason.”

Irani smiled thinly at him, her blue eyes keen and calculating. “No I was not. I’ve had reason to take personal interest in the Infinity Stones over the last few years. As, I understand, has Asgard, given the visit I had from a certain Lady Sif some time ago.”

“I see,” he said, looking back out over the city. So Sif had made it this far, at least…but what then? He deliberated a moment before he answered her. “The Tesseract is safe.”

Some of the tension relaxed out of the woman from what Loki could see of her reflection. “That’s good to hear. And what is it the King of Asgard would seek from me?”

“I’m sure you’ve already realized how eager some will be to spill Asgardian blood in our weakened state.”

“I have,” she agreed.

“We have set a course for Terra, but we haven’t the resources to sustain our people in the transit. We are all but defenseless,” Loki said plainly, turning to face her. “We would ask the aid and protection of the Nova Corps.”

“You shall have it,” Irani said easily, but held up a finger to forestall any gratitude. “On one condition.”

“How refreshingly callous of you,” he mused. “You want the Tesseract.”

“It will be far safer in our vaults here on Xandar than on Terra,” she said firmly, no yield in her tone or countenance. “It is alleged that there may be more than one Infinity Stone there already.”

“Is that so?” Loki wondered, considering his options. The Tesseract was the one true power he held now, secreted away where none but he knew to look for it. Closing his eyes, he saw himself vividly in his mind’s eye, clad in gold and master of a power that was once at Odin’s command. Then he saw Thor gazing at him with something like longing and the high hall he’d built for his brother to keep him safe in his dreaming. Sighing, he inclined his head in agreement. “It will be safest in your hands, Nova Prime.”

“Give me your coordinates,” she said at once, her glass set aside now as she brought up a command screen. As Loki gave her the details of their position, a shadow fell over the gleaming city laid out beyond the high window.

When Thor opened the door to his chambers and stepped onto the high grassy cliffs overlooking the sea, his first thought was that his father desired to speak with him once more. But it was not Odin waiting for him there, staring out at the storm that gathered at the horizon. Loki was clad all in black, as was his wont, though the cut was not of Midgard. He was dressed simply, as he might have done when they were children, sneaking out of the palace to cause trouble wherever their adventures took them. Walking through the tall grass to stand beside him, Thor breathed in the scent of the coming storm with a small shudder, looking over at him.

“Loki? Is this a dream?” he wondered, lifting a hand, yet afraid to touch and find only illusion.

“I’m here,” Loki replied simply, his eyes still cast out toward the sea.

“Where have you been? No one has seen you or Heimdall for a span of days,” he said softly, placing a gentle hand on his arm and feeling the reassuring solidity of warmth there.

“Throwing ones consciousness across galaxies takes its toll,” Loki told him, glancing over at him with a teasing glint to his eyes.

“You were able to reach Xandar?” Thor asked hopefully. “Will they-“ His words stilled at the gentle press of Loki’s fingers on his lips.

“There will be time enough to speak of it later,” he promised. Gesturing out at the illusion around them, Loki smiled wryly. “This could be Asgard someday. Perhaps even someday soon.” Sliding a hand behind Thor’s neck, he pulled him close. “Allow me to welcome you home, my king.”

Feeling something very close to hope in his heart, Thor relaxed into the kiss easily, letting the sound of waves and the scent of salt on the cool air ease the strain of space away. Though he’d grown more used to the ship out of necessity, traversing through the void had been no easier on a heart and mind that longed for living things. Though he didn’t think he could give his feelings voice if he tried, Thor had felt the ache all the more keenly without Loki’s presence close at hand. Despite what he’d told the trickster when last he’d seen him, Thor _wanted_ this…needed the closeness, the intimacy of life to fight back the emptiness that surrounded him.

Breaking the kiss, Loki carefully removed the patch of leather hiding the ruin of his eye and then turned his attention to Thor’s clothing. He began to disrobe him slowly while the god of thunder stood breathless and waiting, helpless but to watch him. It brought to mind the countless times he and Loki had helped the other in and out of armor out on the battlefield, when it would have been far too time consuming to find an attendant not already weighed down with any number of other tasks. When had they changed from gentle comradery to this tense anticipation, like a storm about to break over the sea? Before Jötenheim, of that Thor was certain.

Swallowing thickly, Thor shivered from more than the illusion of wind on his bare torso as Loki knelt before him to draw off his boots. It seemed wrong to see him there, as though in supplication, but Thor had no doubt in his mind as to who between them was in control at present. Slowly, almost reverently, Thor lifted a hand to slide his fingers through the soft, black strands of Loki’s hair, some small part of him still marveling to see him alive and well. Loki turned into the touch in an almost feline manner, smiling up at him through heavily lidded eyes as he undid the lacings of his breeches and pulled them down over his hips, as though stripping Thor of the last of his defenses.

“Loki,” he whispered softly, almost lost on the wind as he carefully stepped free of the final garment at the trickster’s gentle urgings so that he was completely bare before him. “Please…”

“Look at you…” Loki said breathlessly, running his eyes over him before his hands lifted to follow their path, sliding over the planes and dips of his body. “Sculptors would surely weep.”

“Do not tease me…” he murmured, even as his ears heated at the praise. Already he was hard and aching with arousal, feeling as though every part of him was straining toward the sorcerer’s touch.

Loki’s mouth curved into a wicked smile and he leaned forward, his eyes dark and wanting. “As my king commands,” he whispered against Thor’s hip, wrapping a hand around him.

Thor’s breath caught as Loki took him in his mouth, bracing himself against the other as sensation flooded him. He knew that they were well and truly alone for once and a deep, wanton moan tore free of him as he closed his eye tight. Loki moved his mouth over him unhurriedly, his free hand caressing every part of Thor he could reach, learning him by touch alone. Pulling his mouth free of his length with a wet, filthy sound that had Thor’s toes curling in the grass about them, he felt more than heart Loki murmur words of magic and power as he nudged at his thigh.

“Widen your stance,” he directed softly, and Thor opened his eye to find Loki’s heated gaze fixed up at him. He did as was asked of him and his hips bucked shallowly when he felt the slick intrusion of fingers tease at his sensitive flesh. “Good…just like that.”

Loki’s hand continued to move over him, stroking his cock even as he pressed into his body, eyes locked on Thor’s expression to take in every gasp and moan. It was hardly the first time Thor had been penetrated in this way, but it had been long enough that he’d forgotten the sensation, the peculiar desire to seek more, to fill some deeper part while also wanting to be free of it entirely. Loki was careful with him, but firm and unyielding, wasting no time in working another finger inside of him. Thor managed to brace himself before Loki’s clever fingers found their target, but only just, an almost animal noise tearing free of his throat.

“ _Loki_ ,” he breathed and it was almost a demand.

Squeezing his hand around Thor’s cock, Loki stopped its movement as he thrust his fingers into him, slow and merciless. “Tell me,” he demanded. “Tell me what you want.”

“ _You_ ,” he gasped out, his back arching as his thighs trembled and threatened to give out. The admission burned at his pride and heated his flesh, but that did not make it any less true than it was. “I want _you_ , you mad trickster. So _take me_.”

Pulling carefully free of him, Loki rose to claim his mouth hungrily as he moved him, easing him back across the room to tip him onto his mattress. The illusion broke around them in a shower of golden light, but Loki ignored it as he followed Thor onto the bed, stripping away his own clothing uncaringly. There would be no guise now, no false reality that Thor might hide behind, however much he knew the other craved it. Loki was a wholly selfish creature and wanted all of Thor’s senses focused on him and him alone.

Pushing Thor’s thighs wide, Loki knelt between them and drew him forward until their hips met, drawing groans of pleasure from both of them. Thor tried to lay his hands on him, to touch and caress pale skin bared to him for the first time, but Loki denied him again, catching his wrists and pinning them above his head.

“No,” he ordered, squeezing hard once to emphasize his point before releasing him. “Keep them there.” The last thing he wanted was for Thor to lose control of his power the way he had after the council meeting.

Thor glared balefully at him out of his lone eye, but did as instructed, going so far as to stretch them further so that he arched strikingly. “As my sorcerer commands,” he said sarcastically, but the flush to his cheeks belied the pleasure he took in obeying.

Grinning broadly, Loki took what was offered and dragged his hands languidly down his torso. “Such an acquiescent king,” he murmured, rubbing a possessive hand over Thor’s cock just to watch him gasp and writhe. Shifting his weight, he took hold of his own aching length and rubbed the head of it against him.

“Look at me,” he demanded when Thor’s eye fluttered closed and he held his gaze, watching with dark intent as he pressed into the tight heat of him. Loki knew it was just a touch too fast and too firm, but Thor only moaned and yielded to him as he’d known he would.

Leaning over him as he sank fully into the tight heat, Loki panted softly, moving his hands slowly and soothingly over his prize, Thor’s body wound tight as a wire. He wanted to keep his erstwhile brother here like this forever, trembling before him, insistent of his touch. Naturally, Thor chose instead to glare at him and buck his hips impatiently, because Loki could never quite have everything he desired.

“I’m not going to say it again,” Thor warned him, though his voice was breathy at best and hardly convincing.

“Say what?” Loki pressed immediately, rolling his hips in a slow grind that hardly satisfied either of them.

“ _Loki_ ,” Thor moaned in frustration, squeezing around him in fruitless retaliation. He set his jaw stubbornly as Loki smirked down at him, then a challenging glint came to his eye. Thor curled up toward him, all sinew and muscle as he nosed up along his throat, beard brushing over delicate skin as his mouth found the trickster’s ear. “Fuck me,” he breathed into it. “Or I’ll find someone who _will_.”

“Manipulative _bastard_ ,” Loki hissed as his hips snapped forward, forcing Thor back onto the bed. The very idea of Thor going to another was enflaming to the dark beast of his ego, which only made him irritated that he could be so easily riled.

There were no more words between them as they moved together in earnest now, Loki holding Thor’s hips in place to thrust into him. It didn’t take long for their pleasure to build to breaking, not after the weeks and years and _centuries_ it had taken to get to this point, where the universe fell away and left only their primal need. Loki could feel the dry prickle of electricity in the air around them as Thor struggled to keep hold of his power, lightning flickering in the storm blue of his eye. Ducking his head, he caught at Thor’s mouth to taste the power there and groaned to feel the edges of it when he broke, body tight and trembling around him. Sparks stung at his lips and along his tongue and Loki drank it in greedily as he shoved forward and found his own end, imagining in his daze of pleasure that he was marking Thor so deeply no one would ever be able to take him away.

The room was dark again, the lights blown out in the wake of Thor’s power, but this time they remained dimly lit by the stars out beyond the wide window. Slowly, Thor brought his arms down to settle around Loki, smoothing his hands over his back. They stilled when he found the raised lines and jagged ridges there and Loki tensed, pushing away from him. They both shuddered a little as he slipped free of Thor’s body, cool air chilling their heated flesh at the parting.

“What is that?” Thor asked, a frown marring his pleasure lax expression.

“Don’t,” Loki said firmly, leaning away and catching up the loose shirt he’d been wearing, pulling it over his body.

“Loki,” he protested, sitting up.

“Not tonight, Thor,” Loki denied him and made to stand.

Cursing, Thor caught at his arm and held him firm. “Damn it, Loki,” he said vehemently. “Just…stay. Please. I won’t ask about it again tonight, you have my word.”

Loki noticed the way he’d worked in the condition of ‘tonight’ bitterly, but relented after a moment and nodded, allowing Thor to draw him back down. He didn’t want to be _coddled_ , but his traitorous body relaxed easily into Thor’s warmth as the god of thunder curled around him, drawing a blanket loosely about their tangled forms. Neither of them spoke as they lay together, Thor’s breath slow and gentle as it teased over his neck. He’d started to believe the other had fallen asleep before he heard the quiet rumble of his voice, feeling it reverberate through the press of their bodies.

“Why now?” Thor asked in a hushed tone. “Why after so long?”

Shifting to face him, Loki raised his eyebrows at Thor in the low light of the stars. “When before now do you suggest would have been suitable? When I still spoke honestly to call you brother? Or perhaps when I attempted to conquer your precious blue world? Possibly when you took me prisoner…there’s some merit to that one. Did it thrill you to see me bound and gagged?”

Thor scowled, but couldn’t argue the point. “Can I even trust you now? Should I?”

Loki considered the question for a long moment, lifting a hand to trace over the scar Hela had dared to give him. He hated that her mark was forever branded onto Thor, hated that it emphasized the similarities between father and son. “No,” he admitted quietly. “You probably can’t. Or shouldn’t.”

Relaxing slightly at the admission, Thor leaned in and kissed him softly, chastely. “Stay,” he said again, though this time it wasn’t a plea.

Loki smiled a little against his mouth and allowed himself this moment’s peace. “As my king commands.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: More consent issues (but less than the last chapter), possessive behavior, D/s themes, dominant!Loki, top!Loki, voyeurism (sort of), exhibitionism (sort of), mind games, brief mention of comeplay, allusion to body shame, and um...a lot of sex.


	3. Abandoned

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've finally finished it...my monster, my _muse_. Thank you all **so _fucking_ much** for your support in this. Every time I started to lose steam, I would see a comment or a kudos or a note on my Tumblr and it would fortify me against that little voice inside that tells me to quit.
> 
> The third part of this became such a beast that I honestly considered submitting it as a sequel, but I couldn't think of a name for it and thus it is a very peculiar third part compared to the previous two. From this point forward, you will notice a timer, counting down in days (or cycles), hours, minutes and seconds. There are three main threads to follow: one which occurs immediately following the previous chapter, one taking place in the span of days between the last two segments of the previous chapter, and one set roughly six weeks later. They fit together just so and made it impossible to break this part into multiple chapters...there's also a new warning down in the end notes, so if Intersex!Loki is not your thing, then...sorry? It’s only explicit in the section timestamped 38:36:05:22, so once they finish talking about Loki’s back, you can skip to the next section without really missing any big plot points. It was something I had assumed from the beginning, but wasn't fully certain that it would come up, as it hardly defines who Loki is as a character.
> 
> I was trying to get this out before the world premiere of Black Panther, but alas...at least I beat the American premiere? I _am_ considering a sequel, have the core of it planned out in my brain, but I don't know whether or not I'm ready or willing to write it. Maybe I'll wait until Infinity War...I really need to devote time to my other projects: [The Golden Dawn](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12174582) and [Seeker's Gambit](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13176363). I'm also considering a modern AU where Loki is a witch. If you have any other MCU ideas (and I don't just mean Thorki), feel free to lob them at my [Tumblr](https://godofhammers-ao3.tumblr.com/) and maybe one of them will spark another dreadful muse.
> 
> Edit 07MAR: I added a fic cover to the end of this chapter to say thank you to everyone for your support! I placed it at the end of this fic instead of the beginning because it has a spoiler in it.
> 
> Edit 29MAR: Added some fanart I commissioned from [Aivelin](https://aivelin.tumblr.com) as an additional way to show my love for you all. Clicking the picture will take you to the full (NSFW) version on Tumblr. Do you all even understand how amazing you are as readers? You took a chance on a fic from an author that has no previous work in the MCU. That's incredibly humbling and I am so very grateful.

######  _00:00:54:56_

“You seem in remarkably good humor,” Loki commented blandly as he walked into Thor’s chambers. “For a king who just stood up his own council.”

“And you seem remarkably overdressed,” Thor quipped back, taking in his regalia in amusement from where he stood looking out into the endless star field beyond his window.

Piqued, Loki lifted his chin haughtily, folding his arms across his chest. “At least one of us should pretend to still care about the regency.”

“I think we both know you prefer the dramatic effect of a cape.”

“Certainly makes it easier to smother you on a whim,” Loki muttered, crossing the room to stand beside Thor, who chuckled. “Already the courtiers are beginning to mimic that ludicrous half-cape of yours, you realize. Next they’ll all be walking around with Sakaarian slave markings in their shorn hair.”

“ _Slave markings?_ ” Thor sputtered, bringing his hands self-consciously to the sides of his head. Catching sight of the devilish grin on Loki’s face, he scowled and shoved at him playfully. “Arse.”

“They likely will, though,” Loki teased him. They both knew without saying that Loki would have shaved out the decorative lines himself had they actually suggested ownership over Thor by another.

“They are welcome to do what they like…so long as none of them fashion their hair into antlers.”

Loki laughed outright at that and shook his head with fond amusement as Thor smiled and returned his gaze to the vast field of stars beyond the hull. More and more often he found Thor looking out into the void these days and wondered what it was he was searching for. The empty expanse no longer seemed to weigh on him as it had at the beginning of their voyage, though it was possible Thor still felt the rejuvenating effects of their exploits on X-J95 even a week after their departure. Loki himself had been feeling something curiously close to satisfaction lingering deep inside himself since then and didn’t altogether care for it.

“Do you really think it’s a good idea,” Loki began after a few moments of comfortable silence, canting his head to look at Thor, “to go back to Earth?”

“Yes, of course,” Thor replied easily, his grin broad and teasing in such a way that Loki felt the now familiar duality of needing to both kiss and stab the fool of a thunder god. “People on Earth love me. I’m very popular.”

“Let me rephrase that,” Loki said sardonically. “Do you really think it’s a good idea to bring _me_ back to Earth?”

“Probably not, to be honest,” Thor admitted, but seemed unconcerned. “I wouldn’t worry, brother. I feel like everything’s going to work out fine.” His broad smile faltered as a shadow fell over him and they looked to see a ship rise into view, large beyond measure and startlingly fast for its size.

Loki felt a wave of cold fear wash over him and stared up at the ship in horror. They were out of time.

######  _45:00:03:47_

Sunlight shone down upon the hill and the high hall that stood upon it, the air heavy with the weight of summer and yet just shy enough of too hot or too bright to cause discomfit. Loki felt the heat of it soak into the darkness of his hair and clothing, helpless but to absorb the light. Greed was simply part of his innate self, it seemed. The creak of heavy wood heralded her arrival before he saw her, the length of her hair a far richer gold even than the grandeur of the hall. Swallowing around the heaviness in his throat, Loki watched Frigga approach him.

“This is a dream,” he said softly, the edge of accusation in his tone.

“It is…and it isn’t,” she replied in kind, the barest glint of teasing mischief in her clear blue eyes. Frigga had once been so fond of riddles.

“You aren’t here,” Loki insisted.

“Am I not?” she wondered and her touch was wholly solid when she lifted her hand to cup his cheek.

Loki’s breath expelled from his lungs in a rush and he closed his eyes briefly. “You died,” he breathed out without meaning to.

“I did. It was a good death…a warrior’s death. Better than many could ask for,” Frigga told him. Searching his face, her eyes went soft and sad and she smoothed back his dark hair. “Oh, Loki…you blame yourself.”

Mouth tight, he turned his face away from her rather than reply, looking out over the wide valley bracketed by forests that rose into high, blue mountains. Movement caught his eye and he saw Thor following a lazily winding river on horseback, flanked by the Warriors Three. Once he’d spotted them, Loki caught the sound of their laughter on the wind, the familiarity of it a bittersweet ache.

“What is this place?” he whispered, his eyes finding his mother in trepidation.

“You already know that answer, my son,” Frigga said with a knowing smile. “You built it for him, did you not?”

“That...that was a _dream_ ,” Loki protested as he looked up at the golden hall, knowing in his heart the truth of it, yet unable to believe what he was seeing.

“Asgard is not a place, but the soul of her people...why then should Valhalla not be the dream of her King?” she asked and took his hand. “Come...leave your brother to his adventures and see what it is you have made.”

Walking toward the hall alongside her, Loki’s brow furrowed as he eyed the wide doors, the world tree carved across them in intricate relief. “Is such a thing permitted?” he asked cautiously.

“It is for one who has made passage between the realm of life and death. Twice in your case,” she replied, squeezing his hand in her own when he stopped abruptly and stood still to stare at her.

“How could you possibly know about that?”

“Your father,” Frigga said simply. “He has been able to see a great many things without mortality to cloud his vision.”

“Including current events?” Loki wondered, morbidly curious.

“I know in whose bed you sleep tonight, if that’s what you’re asking me,” she said with a knowing look. “Else you would not be here now.”

“And?” he raised his chin slightly in defiance, though in his heart he knew it would hurt for her to deny him this.

“And I have only ever wished happiness for my sons,” she replied in kind. Her voice did not carry the ring of true approval, perhaps...but there was at least acceptance there in measure. “You were always so jealous of his attention, even when you both had grown. I suppose I should have expected this possibility once the truth of your heritage came to light. You never wanted him to love anyone so much as you.”

“Would you ever have told me?” he asked suddenly, hurt and frustration pulling at the shape of his heart like the lingering ache of an old scar.

Frigga’s eyes went soft with regret, but her jaw was firm and hinted of the warrior queen she had been in life. “Your father may have once had plans for a foundling prince of Jötun, but from the moment he laid you in my arms you were my son above all else. I would not have done anything to risk losing you, however selfish that makes me.”

Loki found it much harder to hold onto his anger here away from the waking world and let out a soft sigh, closing his eyes briefly. What use was there in deceiving the dead? Inclining his head in acknowledgement, he afforded his mother a wry smile. “I suppose I take after you in that regard.”

“There are worse traits to adopt than selfish love,” Frigga said warmly, pulling him toward the high doors of the golden hall once more.

Through the egress lay a grand mead hall that was far more than Loki could have possibly imagined and yet exactly what he expected. Light shone in from planned breaks in the thatching of golden shields beyond counting, supplemented by the glow of abundant, decorated braziers spread throughout the hall, filling the air with the scent of charred wood and roasting meat. Great tapestries woven with gold and jewel bright threads hung along the walls, depicting the great battles of Asgard’s history, successes and failures alike. The closest of these showed the fall of Asgard; Hela’s rise to power and subsequent defeat at the hands of Surtur. It was amusing to see himself as both villain and champion among the more recent tapestries, but less so when he saw Odin depicted with a similarly gray morality the further they moved into the hall.

The benches running alongside the mighty table running the length of the hall were filled with the Einherjar, the fallen of Asgard, and Loki could see the Valkyrior among them. So many faces he recognized from the course of his life…some who had fallen at his own hand. They paid him little mind beyond a mild curiosity at seeing the living walk among the dead, unfettered by whatever grudges or regrets that might have bound them as mortals. Music and laughter and the heady scent of mead imbued the air and it was abruptly too much for Loki to take in as he pulled away from Frigga.

“I don’t understand!” he told her roughly, the sharpness of his voice drawing some attention. “Every story, every _prophecy_ ever told of Valhalla spoke of the dead returning to fight at Ragnarok. So where _were_ you? Where was all of _this_?”

“Not at Ragnarok, my son…when Asgard’s need was greatest. When we were called to aid by Asgard’s king,” Frigga said gently, her eyes beseeching. “Oh child…don’t you see? We _weren’t called_.”

Loki laughed at her, though it was wild and dangerously close to a sob. “He would never… Thor would _never_ call you to battle. He couldn’t stomach using you that way, after you’ve already given your lives once.”

Frigga put a hand on his arm, looking up at him with the same eyes that had always spoken to him with far more than mere words could say, willing him to understand her now. “Thor is _not_ the only king of Asgard who yet lives.”

######  _44:19:22:07_

It was wholly expected when Thor awoke to find himself alone, the scent of their sex lingering in the bedclothes even though the warmth of Loki’s body had long since faded. His body still ached pleasantly, though that wouldn’t last but a few more hours, and Thor was surprised to find that he’d been cleaned with some care. Even more unexpected was that he had apparently also been clothed. Pushing himself up on an elbow, Thor flipped back the covers to take in his current state of dress, staring wordlessly for a moment before he hurled himself from the bed with a growl.

 _“Loki!”_ he snarled under his breath, coming to stand before the mirror as though his solitary eye might have deceived him.

Thor was wearing a robe. _The_ robe. The very _same_ robe that he’d watched a vision of his adoptive brother _molesting_ him in during the council meeting close to a week ago. How that image had haunted his thoughts ever since, catching him unawares whenever he let his mind sit idle. Despite the flush of angry embarrassment rising up his neck to color his face, Thor’s body was not unaffected by the sight of himself in the damnable garment, which led him to the second problem of what was _under_ the robe. Almost fearing to look, Thor untied the sash and pulled the robe open, his breath catching to watch himself do something so… _lewd._

He had felt the slight, soft constriction about his hips from the moment he’d woken and Thor could see clearly now that he was wearing Midgardian undergarments. _Feminine_ undergarments, which somehow managed to make the sight of his growing arousal straining the smooth black fabric even more obscene than it might have been otherwise. For a moment, Thor feared that these, like the robe, somehow belonged to Jane Foster, but as he reflexively brushed a thumb over the fabric he realized there was a subtle pattern embossed there. A stylized print of helmets with great, curling horns.

With a broken, desperate sound, Thor braced against the mirror, cupped a hand over himself and pressed down, rocking shamelessly into the sensual slide of fabric. He had to close his eyes against the sight of himself like this, driven wild by the claim he wore, a claim which more than likely been left on him a _joke._ It didn’t _feel_ like a joke to Thor just then, instead the thought of it slid along his spine like hot wax and he drew his hand away from the swell of his arousal to arch forward, pushing his fingers instead down the back of the garment to touch where he was still soft and sore. Thor found himself wishing he were slick and open instead, that Loki would find him there like that and-

Groaning in frustration, Thor pulled his hand away and slammed it against the mirror, sparks licking over his skin as he stood there trembling. He could not become this; _would_ not become this. Thor was King of Asgard, not a wanton youth too hungry for his lover’s touch to remember his obligations. Once he’d come down enough to keep his hips from making small, abortive movements into the slight friction of his underclothes, Thor stood back from the mirror and shrugged off the robe determinedly, letting it fall to the floor. Hooking his thumbs through the foreign, elastic waistband, Thor paused, then decided against removing the offending item. Telling himself it was because he found himself unsure he could resist the temptation to finish what he’d started should he be free of its confines, Thor went to find his clothing and roughly pulled it on.

“I am Thor,” he reminded himself as he found his eyepatch and replaced it. “King of Asgard, as my father before me. My life is bound to the betterment, no…the _survival_ of my people. I will leave this room and spend the day devoted to that purpose because that...is what kings do.”

Sighing in frustration that his speech had done little to quell the desire still pumping through his veins, Thor scrubbed at his hair until it seemed at least passable and determinedly strode from his room. For a moment he was totally at a loss as to where he should even _go_ , because he needed a distraction from the night’s events, yet wasn’t fully prepared to focus his mind on matters of state just yet. What he needed was something boring and non-sexual and-

“Banner!” Thor exclaimed excitedly, startling a passerby. Giving them an awkward nod, Thor hastened away, his goal now in mind.

What Thor needed right now was _science_. Not the sexy, casual intelligence that Jane used to enthrall him with, but the arrogant, annoying, occasionally _homicidal_ science branded by Tony Stark and Bruce Banner. Throw in the near certainty that he would be subjected to one of Banner’s defeatist identity crises and Thor should be well free of any lingering sexual desire. And…well…they were friends, of course. It was good to spend time with friends.

Until very recently, Bruce had been occupying himself among the healers, his medicinal experience having been rather invaluable given the limitations of their current resources. While the Asgardian healers were surely skilled, they had relied upon their technology for too long to easily make the transition back to the fundamentals of the art. The _Foundation_ did have one large medical ward and several emergency stations, but the Grandmaster’s superliner was largely stocked for the treatment of minor injuries, exotic poisons and sexually transmitted disease. Bruce had taken over one of the emergency stations just last cycle and had begun utilizing it as his own private laboratory.

“Banner!” Thor greeted jovially as he stepped inside the over bright room. Noticing the Valkyrie perched upon a worktable very near the scientist and eyeing Thor doubtfully, he grinned. “And our very own Valkyrie! How fare you this day, my friends?”

Rolling her eyes, the Valkyrie gave Bruce a pointed look and slid off the worktable. “Well at least _someone_ is making good use of the night cycle.”

Thor flushed brilliantly as Bruce coughed and grimaced, looking uncomfortable as he stepped further away from the Valkyrie. “Y-yes a restful night’s sleep leads to a lively morning, of course,” Thor said quickly. “Have you not been sleeping, Banner?”

Bruce huffed a self-deprecating laugh at that, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. “Right. Because sleeping in a total vacuum surrounded by aliens when I may or may not wake up green is so relaxing.”

“Though it’s not as if he lets anyone distract him from it,” the Valkyrie muttered under her breath, examining a callus on her palm with apparent interest. Louder she said, “There was another power surge last night. Seems to have originated from near your rooms, Thor. Know anything about that?”

“Well, I mean…”

“Funny how the previous surge like it just so happened to have originated near the council meeting you walked out of last week,” she commented, lips curving upward.

Thor rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “It…may be possible that I’ve not yet mastered full control over my abilities.”

“You don’t say,” the Valkyrie said in mock surprise, putting a hand to her chest. “Do you think that perhaps you might _learn_ some control before you end up losing it near something like, I don’t know… _life support_ or the _engines_? We already have enough problems with the navigation system behaving strangely, no doubt in thanks to your best efforts.”

Bruce frowned in confusion. “That never used to be a problem for you. Is it really that difficult without your hammer?”

“Mjolnir allowed me to focus my power,” Thor sighed, the loss of his hammer still a weight on his heart. “I spent centuries mastering my skills with her aid.”

“So…why not make another focus?” the Valkyrie asked him, raising an eyebrow. “In my time it seemed like the Dwarves were always coming up with some new, all powerful weapon. I should hardly think that none of them remember how.”

Thor opened his mouth to protest, paused as he actually gave it some thought, and then closed it again. “Huh.”

“Perhaps we should consider altering our course, my king,” Heimdall spoke solemnly as he joined them in the lab.

“Heimdall!” Thor greeted him gladly. “Here I was beginning to think my brother had locked you away in some closet.”

Heimdall’s golden-eyed countenance was unreadable as always, but he inclined his head toward his king. “Forgive my absence. I did not anticipate how it would draw upon my strength to assist Loki in his endeavors.”

“Was he successful then?” the Valkyrie wondered, looking interested.

“I will admit that he kept his workings there from my sight,” Heimdall confessed with a displeased frown. “Yet I cannot deny to have seen the Xandarian forces mobilizing.”

“So they are either on their way to help us or kill us,” Thor said, grinning rather fondly. “That sounds like Loki.”

“You really trust him?” Bruce broke in, jaw tight and faintly green.

“I trust his self-interest, my friend,” Thor assured him, putting an appeasing hand upon the scientist’s shoulder. “For now it benefits him as much as us to win protection from the Nova Corps.”

“I will keep watch over the situation, Bruce Banner,” Heimdall promised stoically.

“That isn’t exactly a comfort when you’ve literally just said he can hide himself from your sight,” Banner said wryly, but the greenish hue had faded again.

“If Loki betrays us, I promise you can let the other guy handle him,” Thor half-joked. “But I honestly believe that for now he is the least of our problems. I would cautiously suggest that he may even provide a solution to some of them.” He waited until Banner nodded his assent, then looked back at Heimdall…who was looking at Thor’s _hips_ , his golden eyes distant and considering.

A hot, embarrassed flush shot up his spine to heat the back of his neck, but surely the former Gatekeeper couldn’t know what it was he wore. _Surely_ he wouldn’t abuse his gift in such a way, if he even _could_. Because if that were not the case, Thor was going to abdicate and eject himself out the nearest airlock rather than face the terrible _knowing_ in Heimdall’s gaze.

Blinking once as though he’d been lost in thought, Heimdall simply inclined his head in acknowledgement, then lifted his eyes to meet Thor’s. “I was earnest when I spoke before,” he told him. “Long has it been since the forge of Nidavellir last burned for Asgard. The renewal of such an alliance may prove critical in the coming days.”

Yearning burned bright and hot in Thor’s chest for a moment, but he shook his head regretfully. “Such an endeavor would only invite further hardship. I have to put my people first and right now we can’t be sure when help will arrive. To go so far off course without even being certain the Dwarves would lend their craft would be foolish.”

“Really? That seems like exactly the sort of risky, foolhardy adventure you’d be interested in,” the Valkyrie teased him, folding her arms. “Especially given some of the tales I’ve heard of you here.”

“Once, perhaps,” Thor admitted, smiling a bit sheepishly. “Before I was king. Unfortunately I have to think about more than my own delights now.”

“Pity,” she mourned playfully. “I always liked Nidavellir. They brew excellent beer.”

“If we are not to seek other allies, then I believe we should consider what was suggested by the Kronan during our council meeting,” Heimdall said. “While recovering my strength, I examined some of the worlds we will pass near on our journey to Earth. There is one in particular I believe may suit our purpose in refilling our stores, though we will have to divert our course now to reach it.”

“A hunt?” the Valkyrie asked almost hungrily and Thor felt a similar desire surge through his own body.

“I could see no intelligent life forms, but the planet appears to be inhabited by large, saurian creatures,” Heimdall confirmed.

“Dinosaurs,” Bruce said, his tone caught on a fine point between amused and overwhelmed. “Okay, sure. Why not?”

“Come with me,” the Valkyrie demanded eagerly, walking forward to catch at Heimdall’s arm and pull him toward the door. “I want to see those coordinates.”

“I guess that means I don’t really have a choice in whether or not we’re going,” Thor mused, shaking his head and watching them go.

“She is very persistent when she wants something,” Bruce muttered, turning back to his worktable and the sprawl of wires and circuits he had there.

“I did notice that things were a little…awkward?” Thor hedged, leaning against the table and folding his arms. “That’s new. Isn’t it?”

“I’m not sure it _is_ new for _her_ ,” Bruce said bitterly, picking up a complicated looking circuit board and fiddling with it. “It’s not like I’ve never had a woman interested in me before.”

Thor grinned and raised his brows at him. “Yes, I’ve noticed that too. I’m starting to think you might have a type.”

“Dangerous, beautiful women?”

“There are worse types to have,” Thor agreed jovially, then sobered a little. “Is it because of Natasha that you hesitate?”

Sighing, Bruce set the circuit board down again and braced his hands against the worktable, hunching his shoulders slightly. “That’s not… _not_ a part of it,” he admitted softly. “But for Nat it’s been _years_ …I’m not crazy enough to think she’s been sitting around locked in some tower and waiting for me to show up again.”

“She wouldn’t care so much for you if you were the sort to think that way.”

“Like I said, I’m used to women interested in _me_ …but with the Valkyrie I feel like she’s just as interested in _him_ ,” Bruce said, frustration in his tone. “Maybe even more than me.”

Eyes widening, Thor blanched as the memory of Hulk rising naked from a hot tub burned unbidden through his mind. “You think he was her _consort_?” he blurted out. “Is such a thing even _possible_? Like really, physically possible?”

Bruce glared at him irritably, but fortunately his cheeks were red instead of green. “It isn’t really something I’m trying to think about. But if it’s true…then being around her might end up having the same effect on me that _Nat_ has on _him_.”

Schooling his expression again, Thor put a steadying hand on his arm and very determinedly tried not to think about it himself. “I cannot pretend to know what advice I should give you in this, my friend,” he began earnestly. “But I would say that the Hulk I met on Sakaar was not the same Hulk that I knew on Earth and though I know it displeases you to hear, I have found joy in fighting at his side since first we met. Asgardians are warriors at heart…we cannot help but admire one who was made for battle.”

Bruce only looked at him and Thor patted his back affectionately. “I will trouble you with this no more, except to say that we have a long journey ahead of us. It would gladden me to know that you are not spending it miserable and alone.”

######  _00:00:48:33_

“Is that…a _ship?_ ” Thor asked in disbelief, bracing a hand against the window as he leaned forward to try and see all of it. “I’ve never seen a ship _move_ like that before. Is it Xandarian? It doesn’t look like anything I’ve ever seen the Nova Corps pilot…”

 _“Hey, woah, guys!”_ Korg came over the mass communications system. _“There’s like a really, **really** big ship outside, okay? Like, pretty much if you have eyes and you’re near a window, all you can see is a big, scary ship. Well unless you’re on the wrong side of **our** ship…which might be wise if this side is blown up first, I guess. Not saying they’re going to blow us up, don’t want to cause a panic, just some general advice that comes up when a really big, scary ship flies in out of nowhere.”_

“How didn’t we see this coming? Doesn’t our ship have sensors for…other, _bigger_ ships?” Thor stepped away from the window and gestured at the _Foundation_ around him, feeling woefully inadequate in the rooms he’d only recently thought of as too luxurious.

_“Not to throw any blame around or anything, but I for one was under the impression that we had a special guy on board who could see…well…everything? Yes? No? Maybe missed this one a bit?”_

“Heimdall!” Thor exclaimed, having only been half listening to Korg ramble nervously over the comms. “Why didn’t _Heimdall_ see it coming? It wasn’t invisible or…Loki?” Realizing suddenly that Loki hadn’t moved from his position by the window, Thor looked back at him.

“It isn’t Xandarian,” Loki said softly at last, staring blankly out at the ship. “Or the Nova Corps.”

“Loki, what…” Thor shook his head, feeling a low curl of horrified denial and cold realization begin to settle in his stomach like a stone. “Tell me this wasn’t you.”

“They aren’t coming, Thor,” Loki told him instead, turning to face him with a blank expression. “They never were.”

“What did you do?” Thor whispered as though it pained him because every time, _every single time_ Loki betrayed him it cut a fresh wound. “What have you _done?_ ”

“I did exactly what you asked of me, Thor. I went to Xandar. I petitioned the Nova Corps. And then I watched as they were _obliterated_ by _that_ ,” Loki gestured at the ship behind them.

######  _49:12:26:24_

“There,” Irani Rael said in satisfaction, leaning back away from her console. “I’ve uploaded your coordinates to the Mainframe. Within moments a squadron should be-“ Klaxons sounded about them as her screens began to flash red in alarm.

“What-“ Loki was cut off by an explosion outside that rocked through the building, throwing Irani to the floor. Being a projection of his consciousness and thus unaffected by the tremors, Loki moved quickly to the window and stared up at the ship that blocked out the sky; an eerie twilight cast over the city in its shadow. “No…”

“It isn’t possible!” Irani growled as she levered herself back up, ignoring a trickle of blood that trailed from her scalp as her fingers flew over her console. “It shouldn’t be _possible!_ No one can jump a ship that large in so close to a planet’s atmosphere!”

“What else do you keep in your vault, Nova Prime?” Loki asked her abruptly, already suspecting the answer. He had never seen that particular ship before in his life and yet he _knew_ to whom it belonged…knew it with the surety all dogs felt in the presence of their master.

Though Irani was already a pale woman, she went white as marble at the question, jaw firming defensively. “That isn’t relevant. Access to the vault is supremely restricted, it won’t be p-“ Another tremor shook the building as an enormous beam of energy ripped through the city.

“Won’t be _what?_ ” Loki snarled at her. “ _Possible?_ You keep _saying_ that despite all evidence to the contrary. Thanos is _here_ , Nova Prime. Here in _person_. There’s only one reason he would come.” He pointed at her console. “Wipe the Mainframe.”

“Are you _mad?_ ” she demanded, bracing herself against another quake as her hands continued to move, attempting to scramble some sort of defense together. “We’re under _siege_.”

“You’re being _massacred_ ,” he corrected her cruelly. “And you’ve just uploaded the coordinates to _my_ _ship_.”

“It’s too late,” she said grimly. “It went out on broadcast to the Corps. Even if I wiped the Mainframe now, Thanos only needs to look at the last task order on any one of our ships.” A beam slammed into the shields that had raised around the Nova Corps Headquarters at the first Klaxon, bathing the room in a fiery red glow. “I suggest you leave your position before he does.”

Fear coiled bright and hot under his skin and Loki froze his heart against it. “Goodbye, Nova Prime.”

Irani Rael gave him a hard, bitter smile even as the shields began to fail. “Goodbye, Loki of Asgard.”

Loki wasn’t sure whether or not the screams were real or imagined as he pulled back through the long stretch of space and into his own skin. Stumbling away from Heimdall, he shuddered and braced his hands on his knees, closing his eyes tightly as his stomach roiled in protest. He allowed himself only a few seconds to fall apart before he was pushing himself back upright, eyes wild and desperate.

“Show me Midgard. Now,” he demanded, reaching for Heimdall.

The former Gatekeeper ducked away from Loki less than gracefully, feeling the strain of having had Loki utilizing the infinite pathways of his sight. “What happened on Xandar?” he asked instead.

“There will be time for that later,” Loki snapped angrily. “I need to see Midgard _now_.”

“I will not play conduit to your scheming, Loki Laufeyson,” Heimdall warned him, his stance defensive and imposing, despite the lack of his sword in hand.

Laughing bitterly, Loki summoned a dagger in hand as his mouth slashed into a wicked smile. “If you aren’t going to share your toys, I’ll just have to take them from you.”

######  _44:16:13:54_

While it was wholly necessary to get the _Foundation_ off course so that Loki no longer needed to continually expend his efforts in sabotaging the navigation systems, it took far longer than he would have preferred to show the Valkyrie where he’d seen the saurian planet. Loki had a fair handle on utilizing his stolen prize, but he wasn’t as skilled in translating his expanded sight to actual maps and star charts. According to the computer on board, the planet had been given the designation of X-J95 until such time as sentient beings evolved upon the world and could thus name it themselves. Given that Midgard had at least four names he’d heard used interchangeably in his travels throughout the cosmos, Loki found it a nice sentiment that was ultimately doomed to fail.

When at last they’d located X-J95 and set their course, it was all he could do not to immediately shift back into his proper form to go find Thor. Loki felt as though a beast had been trying to crawl out from the confines of his skin ever since he’d let his curiosity win out and seen whether or not Heimdall’s gifts could be used to look under Thor’s clothing. While his erstwhile brother had wasted time convincing his friends that Loki could be trusted, Loki himself had seen that Thor was still wearing the little gift he’d left him in early that morning.

Conjuring the Midgardian robe and undergarments had been a flagrant abuse of his powers, especially given how much energy it cost him to make use of Heimdall’s sight, but he’d thought it had been clever. This wasn’t clever, this was _maddening._ It seemed as though Loki had managed to play _himself_ the fool in this particular instance, because this was nowhere near the reaction he had envisioned from Thor. He wished now that he’d spent the energy to keep his gaze on the god of thunder until he woke to see his reaction first hand. Had he not been hounded by the thought of Thanos descending upon them in all his dreadful magnificence, Loki would have foregone mentioning the planet entirely and dragged Thor from the room at that moment of revelation.

As soon as he could extract himself from the Valkyrie’s enthusiastic diversion from their destination, Loki focused his pilfered power and quickly scanned the ship, searching for Thor. He found his king trapped in a discussion with the Grand Vizier up near the so-called Council Chambers. The nine rooms were really just a cluster of small administrative offices that had been assigned to the members of the council, giving each a place near the assembly room so that those they represented would be able to find them. It had been his own suggestion largely because he wanted a desk to bend Thor over at leisure, but it also served the purpose of making the council members feel as though they were far more important than they actually were.

Impatiently, he stalked his prey, expending energy to continue the illusion of Heimdall onward toward the Gatekeeper’s room while Loki broke away under the camouflage of his magic, invisible to prying eyes and surveillance. He dropped the concealment moving through a blind corridor and was grateful for the Grand Vizier’s love of his own voice and constant need for attention as he turned a corner and found him still blathering on at length. Honestly, Loki could empathize with the man’s selfish nature, but Thor looked mere moments from resorting to outright rudeness as he neared them. His stormy expression lightened when he noticed Loki’s approach, though Thor’s eye widened at the naked, predatory hunger in his gaze.

He barely slowed his pace as he joined the two, catching hold of Thor by the arm. “Please excuse us, Grand Vizier. My brother and I have an urgent matter to discuss,” he said quickly, ignoring the old fool’s indignant sputtering as he pulled Thor into the nearest of the council chambers. Deadlocking the door behind them, Loki shoved Thor so that he stumbled backward, catching his balance on the desk and causing a wooden bust of Bor upon it to wobble uncertainly.

“Loki, what-“

Loki cut him off with a fierce kiss, fisting his hands in Thor’s tunic. “You’re still _wearing_ them,” he growled in accusation against Thor’s mouth as the king parted his lips to him readily.

“Yes,” Thor gasped, not bothering to deny it or question how Loki knew. The trickster had created them with his magic after all and who was to say that that entailed. His earlier need returned now in full force as he lifted his hands to clutch at Loki, burying his fingers in the dark strands of his hair.

“Are you mine?” Loki wondered, barely more than a rough whisper into the heat of his mouth.

Drawing back, Thor brushed a thumb tenderly at the line of his jaw, as he’d done many times in the past, always with that same longing in his gaze. “Haven’t I always been?” he countered softly.

Shaking off Thor’s hands like an angry cat, Loki fell to his knees and wasted no time in shoving the thunder god’s tunic up and away so that he was free to pull at the lacing on his breeches. Thor let out a shuddering moan as Loki jerked the offending fabric down over his hips, leaving him exposed from navel to thigh except for the thin black garment strained by his burgeoning arousal.

Humming in satisfaction, Loki leaned forward to nuzzle at the cloth, breathing in the scent of him as Thor shuddered and bucked. “Did you like your present, my king?” Loki wondered as he looked up at him, his pupils blown wide with desire.

“Yes,” Thor breathed again, hardening fully at the look in his eyes.

Loki mouthed at him, wetting the cloth a little before he sat back on his heels, his breath coming quick. “What did you do when you found them?” he demanded roughly. “Show me.”

“By the Norns, Loki…” Thor moaned out, closing his eye against the heat of Loki’s gaze.

Ears burning pink with shame and pleasure both, Thor leaned back against the desk and cupped a hand over himself as he had that morning, rolling his hips against the hot press of his palm. His eye flew open again when Loki’s tongue slid along the seam of his fingers, drawing two into the wet heat of his mouth and causing Thor to buck against the heel of his hand. The sight of Loki with his lips wrapped about his fingers, so close to the desperate ache of his cock, set his thighs trembling with want.

“Please…” he begged, voice low and rough.

Loki drew back to nip at his fingertips, flexing his hands against Thor’s hips to hold him back when he tried to press toward him. “Is that all you did?” he asked silkily.

Thor’s breath caught when he remembered what he had done and realized the potential for what would come next. His skin prickled with awareness, and he licked his lips as he considered his answer before he shook his head. “No,” he whispered and turned before Loki could make his demand to be shown heard again. Facing the desk, Thor braced himself against it with one hand and pushed the other down under the thin fabric, biting his lip as he rubbed the slickness from Loki’s mouth against his tender hole.

“Oh, _Thor_ ,” Loki moaned out brokenly, waving a careless hand to dispel his magic and banish the offending garment obstructing his view. “You beautiful man.”

Leaning forward, Loki’s tongue chased his fingers as it had before and Thor breath left him in a hoarse sob as the slick point of it breached him. Sweat prickled on his skin as the trickster’s wicked tongue elicited sparks of sensation, encouraging Thor to press his own fingers in as deep as he could manage. It was terrible and wonderful, far too intimate and not enough. A small crackle of electricity traveled down his arm and along his wrist to his fingers, but while Thor felt nothing but a passing tingle at lightning’s kiss, Loki yelped and jerked back in surprise, pinching the back of Thor’s thigh in retaliation.

“Sorry,” Thor chuckled breathlessly, drawing his hand away and turning to look down at him with a grin that suggested he wasn’t really.

Eyes narrowing suspiciously, Loki worked his jaw as the numbness from the jolt faded. “We clearly need to work on your control,” he muttered, tongue not nearly so nimble just then.

“I’m open to your counsel on the matter,” Thor mused, but his breath caught when Loki caught him by the hips and firmly turned him to face the desk again.

“Hm…” Loki hummed critically, spreading him with his thumbs. “Not as open as I would like.”

Thor’s face flamed to be scrutinized in such a manner, hands curling into fists on the desk. “Loki-” he began warningly, but broke off with a hoarse cry when the trickster set his mouth on him again.

The way Thor trembled and jerked against him gave Loki no small amount of pleasure, wetting him thoroughly before drawing back to press his long, pale fingers inside. Nipping teasingly at the base of Thor’s spine, he whispered words of power into his skin, slicking him open as he had the night before. He’d been careful and tender then, but now he simply _wanted_ ; eager to take everything Thor had to offer and more for as long as he could have it. Thor’s powerful arms quivered and he dropped suddenly forward onto an elbow, snaking a hand between his legs to close about his cock. Catching at his wrist, Loki held it tightly to forestall any movement and bit into the meat of his ass, drawing a cry out of Thor before he soothed the mark with his tongue.

“So impatient,” Loki scolded him, thrusting his fingers into him more sharply.

“Get _on_ with it, then,” Thor demanded imperiously, pulling his hand free of Loki’s hold easily and glaring back at him.

“As my king commands,” he purred and though he’d meant for it to come out calm and unaffected, his words were anything but and Loki could see Thor shiver at the dark, possessive desire in them.

Rising swiftly, Loki curled his fingers over Thor’s hip, gripping him tightly as he quickly freed his own aching flesh from the confines of his clothing. Breath coming quickly now, Loki shuddered and squeezed his length at the picture Thor made before him, his king widening his stance as far as the fabric about his thighs would allow, powerful body tense and waiting. Loki felt nearly consumed by the conflicting desire that everyone should see how wantonly Thor presented his body to him, how eagerly he surrendered to Loki’s affections, while at the same time wanting to covetously keep another living soul from witnessing how beautifully vulnerable Thor was when lost to pleasure.

“Can you even fathom all that I would do for you, Thor?” he murmured, pressing into him with terrible slowness, tortuous to them both. “All that I have done?”

Pressing back against Loki’s hold on him, Thor groaned softly, the words sliding over his skin like a caress. “You…you aren’t my Executioner,” he protested.

Loki laughed darkly at that, because of _course_ he was and that Thor thought it all debatable was absurd. His control slipping, Loki started to move in earnest, thrusting his hips smartly forward while Thor moaned and braced against him. Neither one of them would last after all they had built up between them; already Loki could hear the faint crackle of lightning over their grunts of pleasure and the sound of flesh against flesh. Pulling him upright suddenly, Loki held Thor’s broad frame against his chest, thrusting up into him and curling his fingers possessively at his throat.

“Control,” Loki reminded him, panting against his skin. Without having anything to ground himself against, Thor could very likely hurt him, but Loki couldn’t risk damaging the ship any further than they already had.

“Please,” Thor gasped, letting his head fall back to bare his throat more fully to him. “I…I can’t… Loki…I’m so close!”

Tightening his fingers at his neck, Loki dropped his other hand to encircle the base of his cock. “If you can’t, I’ll keep you right here at the edge, Thor…fuck you close to it for hours until you’ll not generate so much as a spark without my explicit command,” he warned, holding him tightly. “Or is that what you want?”

Thor choked out a moan around the constraint of Loki’s hand in a way that suggested some part of him _did_ want that, and desperately, but slowly he managed to reign in the arcs of electricity dancing over his hands and along his arms, the scent of ozone fading by degrees. Loki made a pleased sound when he obeyed and rewarded him by stroking Thor quickly, his hand still tight at his throat, grounding in its own right. Arching against him beautifully, Thor cried out hoarsely as he came, an echo of thunder in his voice. Moaning, Loki followed after him, shoving up into the tightened heat of his body and pressing his teeth into Thor’s shoulder as though it pained him.

Barely keeping them upright when Thor slumped against him, Loki wrapped his arms about his brawny frame, panting harshly and utterly exhausted. The desk cracked suddenly as the bust of Bor sprouted a tangle of roots that bore into the alien alloys as though seeking water, a great crown of leaves stretching upward from Bor’s horned helm. They both stared at the strange little oak tree that bore their grandfather’s likeness and Loki couldn’t help but laugh, pressing his face into Thor’s back. The Grand Vizier was going to be resplendently furious when he saw the state of his office.

“And they all said _I_ was the dramatic one,” he teased, petting a hand lightly over Thor’s lightly furred belly.

“Shut up,” Thor groused weakly, glaring at the tree as though it had personally offended him. “At least it wasn’t lightning.”

######  _00:00:43:18_

_“Give me that, you idiot! All hands to action stations!”_ the Valkyrie barked into the mass communications, taking over from Korg. _“Transit up and forward on the starboard-side, down and aft port-side.”_

“Why didn’t you _tell_ me?” Thor demanded roughly as the klaxon sounded briefly before she repeated the message again. “All this time…we could have prepared!”

“Prepared _what_ exactly?” Loki retorted, gesturing out at the monstrous ship as it started to open like some terrible maw, drawing them in. “Prepared a ship full of _hostages_ to _die?_ We don’t have a weapons system, Thor! We have _nothing_ to defend ourselves with.”

Thor went still with sudden suspicion and he snatched a glass up off his vanity to hurl at Loki, who sighed as it sailed through his illusion. “You’re _running_ ,” he accused him, anger sparking visibly about him. “All your ‘pretty words and promises’ and you’ll see me abandoned at the first sign of danger.”

Loki’s smile was terrible and cruel as he lifted his chin. “I did warn you not to trust me. There are only two creatures I truly fear in this universe, now that our dear sister is gone. The first is on the _Foundation_ …the second is on _that._ ”

“The Chitauri,” Thor realized, looking past him to the ship obstructing the endless star field beyond. “The scepter…that’s the thing that gave them to you. He’s the one you served.” Remembering the vision that had sparked his quest for the Infinity Stones, he felt dread open in his heart like a chasm. “You owe him the Tesseract.”

“And he owes me a _planet_ ,” Loki affirmed, though in his mind Thanos’ mouthpiece, the Other, whispered to him almost tenderly.

_‘You think you know pain?’_

######  _38:36:05:22_

Loki started awake when calloused fingers brushed over his brow, eyes wide and golden as he reflexively pulled a dagger, holding it to Thor’s throat. He blinked once and his eyes were green again, glad for the darkness of the _Commodore_ to conceal the slip as he looked up at Thor’s wry smile. Which begged the question of exactly why _Thor_ was on _his_ ship. And how he’d gotten all the way to Loki’s _bedside_ without waking him.

“What are you doing here?” he asked roughly, his voice still heavy with sleep.

“You’ve been in here for close to a _week_ , Loki…were you asleep this whole time?” Thor wondered, brow furrowed worriedly.

“Of course not,” Loki bit out immediately, though he felt a little unnerved by the surety that he _had_ been. His energy must have been wholly depleted to have slept so long and for a brief moment he felt a swell of panic that Thanos could have found them in that time. He forced the fear aside, for clearly that had not been the case. “That doesn’t explain what you’re doing on my ship.” He did lower the dagger though, dispelling the weapon from view as he sat up.

“I was worried about you,” Thor said patiently, reaching out to cup the side of his neck in a broad hand.

“You needn’t have been,” Loki replied dismissively, pulling away from him.

Sighing, Thor looked around the darkened ship, bare but for the bed Loki had slid out of its hidden compartment. “You ought not sleep here, brother. Our Valkyrie says it played host the Grandmaster’s orgies,” Thor told him, grinning as though he expected Loki to be scandalized.

“I’m aware,” Loki said simply instead, shrugging and rubbing a tired hand over his face. When he looked back at Thor, the teasing grin was gone and his expression had clouded. Loki’s eyebrows arched and he smiled mockingly at him. “Why, Thor…do I detect a thread of jealousy?”

Casting his gaze away, Thor swallowed thickly against the rising storm of his anger. “You…you should not have had to-“

“To _what_ , Thor?” Loki asked him dangerously. Seizing the god of thunder by the front of his tunic, he pulled him onto the bed and thrust him backward, straddling him. Sitting astride Thor as though he were adorned in full regalia instead of the soft, dark linen of his sleeping clothes, Loki rolled his hips against him slowly. “To earn the Grandmaster’s favor on my back? To claw through the ranks of his sycophants entangled in this very bed? But I’m so _very_ good at it…shall I show you just how good I can be?”

Expression dark, Thor caught at his hips and stilled their movement, even as his body started to respond. “Stop this, Loki.”

Quick as a snake, Loki darted forward and caught Thor by the throat, gripping him tightly as he snarled angrily in his ear. “I was a _king_ ,” he spat, his voice low and furious. “I play the whore for _no one._ Not even you.” Shoving away from him, Loki rolled to his feet and stalked across the ship to jab at a seemingly blank wall, producing an elegant golden sink.

Thor remained on the bed, staring up at the ceiling as Loki splashed water on his face. “I’m sorry,” he said softly after the water cut off again, sitting up slowly. “It was unworthy of me to suggest that.”

“Yes, it was,” Loki agreed, sharpness still in his voice. Folding his arms, he leaned against the far wall, frowning at Thor. “The Grandmaster cares far more for visual spectacle than tangible pleasure…it’s doubtful he even understands how to process the majority of his senses anymore. I showed him just enough of my abilities to spark his fickle interest and keep it. But even if I _had_ slept with him and every other being on Sakaar, it _still_ wouldn’t concern you.”

“I know,” Thor admitted, his eye cast downward. “You don’t owe me an explanation.”

“No, I don’t,” Loki said firmly, but the edge had faded from his tone.

Silence held between them a moment, then Thor spoke softly, a soft admittance. “I hated your clothing there.”

Taken aback, Loki raised an eyebrow at him. “I beg your pardon?”

“On Sakaar,” Thor clarified, looking down at his hands. “You were clothed in blue and gold…the Grandmaster’s colors. They were ill-suited and cowardly and I…I hated seeing you that way.”

Loki didn’t bother pointing out that Thor had just inferred he was a _coward_ , because he had, in all fairness, been hiding there from Hela’s wrath. Nor did he bother mentioning that part of his eagerness to shed his usual fare was to blend into his surroundings, to keep himself from possibly being associated with her. In the brief minutes he’d known her, Loki had seen far more of himself than he ever had with the rest of his adoptive family and that was…unsettling. Some childish part of him hoped that a penchant towards black and green was not somehow indicative of a lust to conquer.

With a tired sigh, he returned to the bed and lifted Thor’s face to kiss him chastely, stroking his fingers lightly over his beard with an air of forgiveness. “Perhaps we should keep our focus on the present. The past holds too much against us.”

“Does that mean we’ll finally speak of what’s happening now between us?” Thor wondered, lifting a hand to brush through Loki’s soft curls, relaxed from his usual coif and tousled from sleep.

Loki drew away from the touch, raising a brow at him. “Pretty words and promises?” he wondered archly. “Shall I write you a sonnet?”

Sighing irritably, Thor gestured at him. “If you have no wish to discuss your sentiment toward me, perhaps there are other truths you could bear to part with,” he said in frustration.

“Such as?”

Thor held up his hand to count out them out in turn. “What, exactly, happened on Xandar? What happened to your back? Why did you try to conquer Earth? _Why_ did you let me think you were _dead?_ ” he asked, growing more heated with each question. “Why won’t you let me _touch you?_ ”

“What?” Loki startled in surprise, completely caught off guard by the last part. “Of course I let you touch me.”

Barking out a laugh at his incredulous expression, Thor shook his head. “No, you really don’t. You refute any touch I offer with the intention of bringing you pleasure,” he said, smiling at him with exasperated fondness. “You don’t even realize you’re doing it, do you?”

Loki felt mildly stunned by this revelation, though the more he thought about it the more he found truth in Thor’s words, especially since his return from Xandar. It was unnerving to think that Thor, who had been so blind to all but his own glory for so much of their lives had taken notice of something that Loki had not. Moving to lean languidly against his pillows, he gestured down the length of his body, his brow raised expectantly.

“Then by all means,” he dared him, smirking. “Pleasure me.”

Thor’s eye widened slightly, looking him over with desire clear in his gaze before his brow furrowed. “Loki…” he said doubtfully.

“Thor,” Loki replied mockingly. “I find it fascinating how many intonations you manage to find for my name.”

Huffing a soft, amused laugh, Thor bent to remove his boots and set them beside the bed. “Spirits are more likely to heed you if you invoke them by name,” he teased, reaching out to lay his hand gently over the pale arch of Loki’s bare foot. “I would still have my answers, brother.”

Rolling his eyes, Loki pushed at him with his other foot. “If you can manage to please me, perhaps I’ll give them to you.”

Leaning toward him, Thor cupped Loki’s neck, brushing his thumb over his jaw as he sighed, “You never make it easy.” He kissed him softly then and with terrible fondness, tethering Loki between the gentle warmth of his hands.

Loki realized now why he had avoided this for so long, because this…this was torture. It was one thing to _possess_ Thor, to bend him so beautifully to his will and coax pleasure from him until he broke. It was quite another to feel Thor’s affections laid upon his person, as though he truly _cared_ for Loki, despite all the reasons he shouldn’t.

“Nova Prime agreed to lend us the aid of the Nova Corps,” he said when Thor pulled back from the kiss, because half-truths were better than sentiment. “But she could not guarantee when they would arrive.”

Humming softly, Thor grinned and pressed his lips lightly to his throat, sliding his touch up from his foot to encircle his ankle, rubbing a slow, soothing circle over the knob of bone. “If I had known this to be an effective interrogation technique, I would have employed it years ago,” he mused against pale skin, causing Loki to shiver slightly at the brush of his beard. “You don’t think they’ll come?”

“I think trusting our fate to charity is foolish,” he said, his breath catching when Thor sucked a faint mark where his neck curved out to his shoulder.

Pausing at that, Thor pulled back to look at him seriously, his eye searching Loki’s. “Was it charity she offered? Or did she seek payment for services rendered?” he wondered, though he’d already guessed the answer. Nodding when he was met with Loki’s silence, as much an answer as his words, Thor let their foreheads rest together. “It’s not as though I’d forgotten what laid in Asgard’s vaults…I know that you covet the Tesseract, Loki. That’s why I’m trusting you to keep it safe…for now.”

“You’re such a fool,” Loki chided him, tilting his face to kiss him all the same.

“Probably,” Thor agreed, brushing through his soft curls. “Will they come?”

Loki debated telling him everything for a moment; being wholly and brutally honest about how they were completely out of their depth, but instead he sighed and said, “They will try.” Because he’d meant what he said…Thor was a _fool_ who was like to get them both spectacularly killed while attempting to play the hero once he learned the truth. It was a damnable trait Thor had demonstrated repeatedly over the course of their very long lives.

“That’s all we can ever really hope for,” Thor said with a smile. “Like they say on Earth…hope for the best, prepare for the worst.”

“Yet another reason to be so very _thrilled_ about our destination,” Loki commented dryly. “Who doesn’t love a planet with such a _variety_ of catch phrases.”

Laughing softly, Thor kissed him again, his mood greatly buoyed by the bits of veracity he’d managed past Loki’s silver tongue. Stretching out beside him, he smoothed his broad, battle-worn hands over the trickster, mapping out the shape of his form through soft linen until Loki made a frustrated sound and pushed him back.

“Do you mean only to touch me through a barrier?” he demanded testily, frowning when Thor grinned at him.

“Do I have permission to do otherwise?” he asked in amusement, brushing a thumb over Loki’s scowl.

Loki’s eyes narrowed suspiciously at him. “I feel as though you’re trying to make some point.”

“I would not dare to do such a thing, brother,” he said warmly, though there was mischief in his eye. “You bade me pleasure you, but I would not presume to take liberties without consent.”

“Are you… _scolding_ me?” Loki asked askance, starting to sit up.

Thor laughed and pulled him back down to the bed, pressing a mollifying kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Peace, brother… Your methods in this thing between us have been…questionable at times, but I will admit that you have a way of knowing what I need,” he confessed, stroking his fingers through Loki’s hair. “Things I don’t know that I need…things I could never ask for. But I am not so pre-possessed to know your mind. You’ll have to give me guidance.”

Tilting his head thoughtfully into his touch, Loki couldn’t help but feel that Thor knew his mind far better than he cared to admit. Far more than he wished Thor to know, at any rate. “Undress yourself for me,” he said after a few moments. “And then tell me exactly how you’d like to touch me.”

Moving to his knees, Thor smiled down at him as he pulled off his tunic, feeling flushed and pleased by the way Loki’s eyes moved appreciatively over his form. “I want to see you,” he told the god of mischief, unlacing the front of his breeches. “All of you. I want to know where and how you like to be touched and where you don’t.” Pushing the cloth down over his hips, Thor stripped himself bare, reaching up to even remove the patch he wore over the ruin of his eye, as Loki had done before. “I…” Thor hesitated, feeling ill at ease to be naked before him, admitting his desires aloud. “I’d like to have my mouth on you.”

Loki licked his lips lightly and nodded, a bit breathless with want for him. “I’m amenable to that,” he said in a low, honeyed tone, leaning forward to run his fingers lightly over the small scar at Thor’s flank. Asgardians were not quick to scar, but Loki had been repeatedly stabbing Thor in close to the same place over the course of their lives, since they were children in fact. “You may undress me now.”

“Thank you, my most gracious sorcerer,” Thor teased affectionately, his hands finding the hem of Loki’s linen shirt.

He drew it up slowly so that he could brush his fingers over Loki’s pale skin as he revealed it, following the fall of fabric up over the strong lines of his shoulders and down the lengths of his arms. Thor looked his fill of him, his hands ghosting lightly over his chest, tracing the line of his collarbone and the flat plane of his sternum before trailing over the seemingly unbroken skin where Loki hid his scar. Thor’s brow furrowed as he found the ridges of it through Loki’s illusion, looking at him as he realized what it was.

“Show me,” he said softly. “Please.”

Loki sighed, but let the illusion he kept on his skin fade, casting his eyes away so that he didn’t have to see whatever awful sentiment Thor would bring to bear. He heard his king’s breath catch at the sight of the jagged line where the Kursed had impaled him years ago on the surface of Svartalfheim.

“I don’t understand,” Thor whispered, his words thick with emotion as he carefully touched the scar, as though it were still only newly healed. “How did you survive this?”

Pressing his lips into a thin, unhappy line, Loki debated it for a moment, then gently pushed Thor away from him. “I will show you, on two conditions,” he said seriously. “You refrain from abject pity and we don’t speak of it again beyond tonight.” He waited until Thor nodded his acquiescence and then took a slow breath and turned away from him.

“ _Loki_ ,” Thor breathed out in anguish as the sight twisted about his heart like wire. “Who _did_ this to you?”

A large glyph had been painstakingly carved into his back, the deep lines filled with what looked like gold, but Loki had long suspected was actually the same anomalous substance from which Thanos had forged his armor. It was terrible and alien and beautiful for all that he had gone through to get it, though it was slightly marred now by the matching scar from where the sword had passed fully through him. Reaching back, Loki fingered the edge of one of the lines where it slid over the blade of his shoulder.

“The scepter I wielded on Earth, the aid of the Chitauri…I did not come by these lightly, Thor. I had to _earn_ them, to prove myself over others who would have claimed that power. Missteps I made in that process demanded…improvement.”

“Improvement,” Thor repeated, thunder rumbling behind the banked anger in his voice. “Loki you were _tortured_. _Mutilated_.”

“And I was made stronger for it,” he snapped at him, hardly needing Thor to explain it to him now. “My seidr grew _exponentially_ once it healed, allowing me to tap into magic I hadn’t realized myself capable of. Including, as I found out much later, a sort of lifeline. I have no way of knowing how many times it will bring me back or if the power will ever fade.” Loki sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, drawing up his knees to rest his arms upon them. “The scepter changed me, too, in ways I am still discovering. I once thought that I had mastery over it, that I was using it to manipulate those around me as I willed…but now I’m beginning to feel as though it had me leashed.”

“It held an Infinity Stone,” Thor admitted quietly. “We learned of it two years ago. I had thought on Earth that you seemed…unwell. A man possessed.”

“Perhaps I was,” Loki replied, lifting his shoulders in a small shrug that pulled at the glyph. “But that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t also following my own ambition.”

“I would never think to discredit your misdeeds, brother,” Thor told him wryly. Hesitantly, he put his hand on Loki’s back, careful not to touch the thick golden lines. “Does it hurt?”

“It is…difficult to put into words,” Loki hedged. “But I’ve grown used to it by now. For you it’s been what, a decade since I let myself fall into the void? For me it was…significantly longer.”

“Loki…” he said in a pained whisper and leaned forward to press a gentle kiss to the back of his neck.

“Don’t be maudlin, Thor,” Loki chided him softly. “Remember my stipulations.”

“I remember,” he promised and carefully traced over the edge of the glyph, as Loki had done. When the sorcerer did not protest this, he very lightly ran his finger along the thick golden line itself and the reaction was immediate.

“Ahn!” Loki gasped in surprise and arched away from him, shivering all over. “What did you…don’t _do_ that!”

“Sorry, I…sorry. What…was that?” Thor asked, feeling dazed as the first time he’d ever called lightning to his hand. “Did I hurt you?”

“N-no,” Loki said shakily, swallowing thickly. It felt as though Thor had dipped a hand straight into the well of his seidr, touching him far more intimately than should be possible. For a moment he’d felt fully consumed by Thor, as though he were everywhere, in every part of him. “It was just…too much. I could…feel you…with my magic.”

Thor nodded numbly, sliding his hands over Loki’s shoulders as the temptation to touch the golden lines again writhed like a live wire in his brain. Sparks danced over his fingers slightly where they tightened against the lean strength of Loki’s arms and he leaned in to nose at his dark curls.

“I want to try it again,” he confessed in a whisper.

“Thor…” Loki said with a shiver, knowing it was foolish to even consider. Despite this, he nodded wordlessly, dread and anticipation flashing through his body.

Because the god of thunder never did anything in half-measures, rather than the same cautious touch as before, he instead splayed the whole of his hand gently onto his back to cross several lines at once. Loki cried out hoarsely as Thor flooded into him again, merging in under his skin and in the darkest parts of his heart. It was as though they could meld into a singular form like this, ice and snow and storm and oak and suddenly he was turning and Thor was kissing him or maybe he was kissing Thor, each holding tight to the other. The heat of Thor’s mouth burned down his chest and Loki gripped at his hair to encourage him, shoving him down where he needed him and raising his hips so that Thor could pull away the last obstacle between them.

Warm breath slid over Loki where he was hard and aching and Thor looked up at him, silently asking his permission as power sparked in his eye. Loki could feel his magic fluctuating wildly, ripples of blue sliding over his skin, but he nodded breathlessly and cupped Thor’s head in his hands, a shattered moan slipping from him as he opened his mouth to him. Thor’s firm, callused hand encircled the base of him, holding his cock steady while he sucked slowly at the tip. Cradling Thor’s head in his hands, Loki rubbed over his soft, shorn hair, dragging his nails lightly over his scalp in encouragement when his king took in more of him.

“Thor…” Loki breathed softly, biting off a groan as Thor started to move his mouth over him. “Good, like that…”

Closing his eye, Thor parted Loki’s legs wider as he worked to take him deeper, stroking a hand over his chest and abdomen, covering his scar as though Thor could make him whole. Sliding his hand back down to Loki’s knee, he stroked up the soft skin of his thigh until he could rub his thumb against the sensitive skin of his perineum. He was surprised when he found a raised line of flesh like a scar and Loki hissed and jerked at his touch, catching his hand quickly.

“Don’t!” he said quickly, a dark flush spreading across his face.

Thor pulled back to look down in the dim light, his brow furrowed in confusion. “Another scar?” he asked.

“No, I…I’m _Jötun_ , you idiot!” Loki snarled, shamed of his heritage and embarrassed to feel how readily his body had opened at Thor’s brief touch.

Brow furrowed, Thor was about to ask what it was he meant when it suddenly came to him, his breath hitching as he saw now where Loki’s flesh had parted. Loki wasn’t entirely sure what reaction he had expected, but it certainly wasn’t for Thor to let out a low, lustful groan, soft and breathless. He pulled lightly against Loki’s hold on his wrist, giving him a heated look.

“Please…can I…let me touch you…” he whispered roughly.

Wide eyed and flustered by the raw, desperate hunger in Thor’s expression, Loki hesitated, desire and unease twisting together low in his belly. He vividly remembered asking his mother what was wrong with him, why he was _different_ as a child and the fleeting look of fear and shame she’d worn before she lay her magic on him. It had held fast over the centuries until after her death, when Loki was suddenly faced with boredom and a wealth of free time to find the workings of her spell and curiously pick it apart. The sudden indignity of his sex had been… _startling_ to say the least, so he’d taken great care to avoid the matter entirely.

“Failure to make use of…of an _orifice_ in no way denotes virginity,” Loki spat heatedly. “This will win you _nothing._ ”

Thor looked surprised by this vitriol and braced an arm against the bed to lean over him, his expression horribly earnest. “I don’t seek to _conquer_ you, brother…” he told him seriously. “I would not strive to touch you as some _prize…_ some spoil of war. I meant what I said before…I want to see and know all of you.” He pressed a light kiss to the corner of his mouth, murmuring against his lips. “To have my mouth on you…”

Not trusting himself to answer, Loki shivered and released his wrist where he’d caught him, giving the barest of nods. However discomfited he was, Loki was helpless but to be enticed when Thor offered him such reverential desire. Once, long ago, someone had accused him of being one that craved love, yet sought adulation, but basking in Thor’s yearning of him was headier by far. Sliding their fingers together, Loki guided them both to touch where he was soft and yielding, breathing in Thor’s small exhalation of breath with a shiver.

Their lips brushing with closeness, a mimicry of a kiss, Thor gave a small, pleased groan as he explored him, rubbing his fingers through the gathering slickness there. “Tell me what to do…what I am allowed,” he whispered into Loki’s mouth, thick with need.

“The things that come from your mouth,” Loki said with a shudder of want, drawing his hand away from Thor’s between his thighs. Leaning back, he pushed his wet fingers into Thor’s mouth, rubbing the taste of himself onto his tongue. “Put it to better use, my king.”

Thor moaned and sucked at his long, pale fingers as Loki thrust them languidly into his mouth, moving his own in a mimicry of the movement against the wet heat of Loki’s sex. He panted when Loki pulled his fingers free to card through his shorn hair, moving readily back between Loki’s thighs at his guidance. Drawing his hand away from him, Thor rubbed the slickness over the soft orbs of Loki’s sack, smaller than his own, and stroked his cock slowly as his mouth descended. Loki’s breath caught on a choked off moan as Thor wasted no time in slipping his tongue among the newly opened folds of skin, licking and sucking at him with an appreciative groan that vibrated against his sensitive flesh.

It was an alien feeling that set a fine, watery tremble through his thighs as Loki rolled his hips against Thor’s mouth and the pull of his hand. Laid out and exposed as he was, Loki was finding it difficult to keep the illusion of his Asgardian form in place, which normally came to him as easily as breathing. He gasped and arched when Thor thrust his tongue into the wet heat of his body, fisting a hand gone fully blue tightly in the short, gold strands of his hair.

“Stop,” he commanded breathlessly, pulling away his king, who relinquished his hold on him immediately.

“Loki?” Thor asked roughly, worried even as he panted.

Loki shuddered at the picture he made, sole pupil blown wide and his lips swollen and wet, a throbbing curl of want pulsing inside of him. He could see the moment Thor realized his disguises had fallen and tightened his hold on him punishingly. “Don’t look at me,” he demanded harshly, sitting up fully to push him back, releasing his hair.

Closing his eye, Thor frowned, but let himself be moved obediently. “Loki…” he began gently, his voice a low rumble. “Please, I-“

“No,” Loki denied him firmly. He had already allowed Thor so much of himself tonight, given away secrets and truths and allowed his touch where he’d even denied his _own_. By the Norns, he’d even let Thor inside of his _seidr_ ; the seat of his magic still roiling with the upset. He _refused_ to give him this as well. “You said this was about learning what I want. Well I don’t _want_ to be seen like this, Thor.”

Thor let the tension ease out of him at that as he nodded, taking a slow, calming breath. “Yes, I…you’re right. Do…you want me to go?” he asked gently.

Loki considered that seriously for a moment, weighed his discomfit with his body against the pulsing aching need of it, torn briefly by the dichotomy of desperately wanting to be alone and utterly _craving_ Thor’s closeness. “No,” he said finally, surprised and annoyed to find that true. “Just…lie back. Give me a moment.”

It was almost galling how easily Thor lay back beside him, implicit in his trust as he lay exposed and aching and blinded by his own volition…all at Loki’s behest. This was everything he’d ever wanted and not nearly enough and Loki loved and hated Thor for it even as he reached for him, helpless but to touch the raw, powerful beauty of his form. Thor shivered at the natural chill of his hands, but otherwise made no protest, instead arching into the slide of his hands. Grounding himself in the warmth of Thor’s body, Loki pulled his illusions to bear, relieved to see his skin go pale once more.

“You told me once that surrender wasn’t in your nature…yet look how it becomes you,” Loki mused admiringly.

Thor tensed and flushed, shaking his head with a frown. “I’m not…this isn’t…” he sighed and caught one of Loki’s hands, pressing it to his sternum so that their fingers touched the place where he’d first born the mark of his dagger when they’d started this weeks ago. “This doesn’t _feel_ like surrender.”

“And yet.” Pushing himself up, he straddled Thor’s chest and caressed the side of his face, breath hitching at the dampness of his beard, wet from _Loki_. “Open,” he commanded softly and sighed in pleased satisfaction when Thor parted his lips obediently. Taking himself in hand, Loki slanted his hips forward to slide into the heat of his mouth. “I did mean your eye, but this will do nicely.”

Opening his eye to scowl up at him, Thor sucked at him almost petulantly, but could hardly find it in himself to get upset when he had what he wanted. Bringing his hands to grip at Loki’s hips, he guided the trickster into a shallow roll that he could manage without too much difficulty. Despite however eager he might be, Thor had gone far too long without engaging in the act before now to have the skill to take him in as he wished. Loki allowed his guidance to a point, but pressed a little deeper and faster than was strictly comfortable, pushing Thor to adjust and adapt to being taken in this way as he ran his long, pale fingers through his shorn hair.

“I remember watching you walk into the ring on Sakaar…shaved and painted and _primed_ for battle,” Loki panted softly, tugging lightly at the short strands. “You looked so _savage_ …so beautiful. For a moment I thought very seriously about using every last drop of my favor to ask the Grandmaster for a transference of ownership.” He moaned and arched as Thor’s fingers tightened on his hips, sucking at him hard even as his face heated. “You would have been _breathtakingly_ furious…how I would have loved to see that.”

Sliding a hand under Loki’s hips, Thor pressed his fingers against the slick heat of him again, watching as he gasped and shuddered, his rhythm and words faltering. Loki hesitated, then leaned forward to brace himself against the wall, arching and pressing deeper into Thor’s mouth even as Thor pressed a finger inside. Beyond words now, Loki panted in quick, hot gasps, unable to take his eyes off of Thor as he moved his hips unsteadily between the tantalizing wet heat mouth and the pleasurable discomfort of penetration.

“Another,” he demanded hoarsely and stopped breathing entirely when Thor acquiesced.

Loki knew he was close, could feel it swelling just out of reach and wasn’t sure whether he wanted to demand that Thor fill him further or remove his hand entirely when his king abruptly began curling and rubbing his fingers in a practiced movement. His back bowing, Loki felt as though something were melting, cresting in a wholly unfamiliar way and cried out as he came, hardly feeling Thor’s mouth around him now. A fine tremble worked though him from shoulder to thigh as he panted and drifted back to himself, relaxing his hand where it had fisted in Thor’s hair.

Shifting back slightly to see him better, Loki stroked Thor’s face again as waves of contentment settled over his limbs, pushing a thumb lazily through the mess he’d made about his beard and back inside to rest on Thor’s tongue. “Touch yourself for me, Thor,” he murmured to him softly, his voice a low husk.

With a broken, desperate sound, Thor did as he bade, wrapping a hand around his aching cock and stroking himself quickly, using the slickness stolen from Loki to ease the quick movement. Keeping his thumb slotted between Thor’s teeth, Loki stroked his face and hair almost lovingly with his other hand, watching him closely.

“Don’t look away from me…not for a moment,” he insisted softly. “I want every part of you to be _saturated_ with me when you come. I want to fill you so completely that you’ll never be free of me.”

“Nnh!” Bucking into his fist, Thor panted and rubbed his tongue against Loki’s thumb, his eye fixed upon him and silently pleading with him for release.

“Give it all to me, my king,” Loki whispered, laying his hand possessively over Thor’s throat. “Give me everything so that _I’ll_ never be free of _you_.”

With a sharp crackle of electricity, Thor arched up off of the bed and came with a hoarse cry, nearly dislodging Loki where he straddled him still. Though he’d expected to feel the numbing sting of lightning’s kiss, Loki was surprised to find it a low, hot tingle as the arcs of energy danced between them. Tracing his fingers lightly over Thor’s relaxed features, slack with release, he watched the sparks light along his hand in fascination.

“What is it you’ve done to me, Thor?” he wondered softly, moving off of him to slump back against the pillows.

“Mmnh?” Thor grunted, half-asleep already. Heedless of the utter mess of his body, Thor turned to put an arm around him, slotting his leg between Loki’s.

Rolling his eyes, Loki shook his head, but smiled with reluctant affection and allowed the heavy weight of his embrace. “It’s nothing. Go to sleep, brother,” he murmured, pressing his smile into Thor’s hair. “Good talk.”

######  _00:00:40:26_

“No,” Thor said decisively and headed for the door. “I won’t allow this.”

“What? Thor, don’t be absurd!” Loki protested, his illusion following Thor out into the halls.

Asgardians were moving swiftly through the passage as everyone made for their assigned posts, the training the Valkyrie had led them in in the past weeks leaving them mostly calm and determined even as the massive ship beyond their hull closed in around them, trapping them inside. Thor knew he should go to his people, should be the king they deserved in what was looking to be their final moments, but all he could think about was how he was _not_ losing Loki _again_.

“Be reasonable, Thor. Madness descends upon you, upon your precious _Asgard_ and you would abandon them for what?” Loki’s shade demanded of him, pacing Thor in his determined stride as he wove among the people, making for the _Commodore_. “To ensure I die alongside you?”

Thor ignored him until he reached the maintenance hatch that led to the _Commodore’s_ airlock, giving the illusion a fierce look. “We’ve been together more than a thousand years, brother,” he told him sternly. “There may yet come a day when we will die side-by-side in glorious battle, but that is _not_ this day…I will _not_ let you go so easily. Not after all it cost us to get here.” He smiled grimly at the shocked, vulnerable expression that painted itself briefly across the illusion before it passed, then climbed upward to the ship above as the false trickster faded in a shower of golden light.

Loki was waiting for him as he crossed the airlock into the smooth white and orange innards of the leisure vessel, tense and unhappy as a wet cat. “You’re such a fool,” he chided Thor tiredly, resigned. The Tesseract cast a blue light upon him where he held it at his side, shifting and shimmering as though in anticipation of the fight to come.

“And you’re an arse,” Thor told him, some of the tension easing from his body as he stalked toward the trickster. “When this is over I’m going to-“ He was cut off abruptly when he fell through the portal concealed in the floor, dropping through open air and plunging into the icy depths of the Norwegian Sea.

“Sorry,” Loki commented idly, watching Thor from across the cosmos with his stolen sight. “Didn’t catch that last part.” He took a few, selfish moments to gaze at his king as he cursed and flailed in the waves, half in shock at the sudden departure from space. Returning to his present surroundings with effort, he turned to open the hatch where Heimdall was bound, half frozen and glaring at Loki with the crimson eyes of a Jötun.

“Fancy a swim?”

######  _47:21:45:04_

It took nearly a full cycle for Loki to complete the spell that traded his eyes for Heimdall’s. Subduing the former Gatekeeper had not been easy, but Loki was desperate and armed and had already drained a great deal of Heimdall’s energy in his transit to Xandar. The first attempt at using his newfound abilities was so overwhelming that he’d fallen unconscious for several hours, blinded by the sheer enormity of being able to see _everything._ Upon waking, he’d been filled with such sudden terror at being caught that he’d abandoned his pursuit to go and tamper with the navigation, steering them off course. Before the second attempt he forced himself into Heimdall’s memories, sifting through them carelessly until he thought he gleaned enough understanding to try again.

Finding Midgard was tricky until he stopped trying to find a singular _planet_ and instead focused on the _star_ , yellow and warm with the promise of life. From there the trouble was sifting through the billions of beings swarming about the planet’s surface, because of course the man wouldn’t have remained in New York City all this time. Loki had been glad to try and destroy the wretched place, and later glad to abandon Odin to what remained of it. He supposed he ought to have been rather unsurprised to find his intended target in Norway, working in a makeshift lab of militant field tents only a few meters from where he and Thor had first faced Hela.

“Hello, Erik,” Loki all but purred, smiling wickedly as Erik Selvig jumped up from where he’d been studiously slumped over his equipment, whirling in wide-eyed horror.

“L-Loki!” he gasped, shaking his head vehemently and bumping into his worktable in an attempt to move further away from him. “No…y-you can’t _be_ here. Thor, he…he said you were _dead._ ”

“Didn’t take, I’m afraid,” Loki said smoothly, giving the illusion of leaning nonchalantly against a tent pole. “I need your help, Erik.”

“Fuck off,” Erik barked out a harsh laugh, shaking his head in disbelief. “You must be joking!”

“Is there a problem, Doctor Selvig?” a voice asked calmly and Loki tensed in surprise when a being phased through the wall of the tent to join them. Taking in the sight of Loki standing there in his neat black suit, the being paused, then inclined his head slightly. “You are Loki. Of Asgard. You were seen in New York in the company of Thor before you vanished through a portal.” Erik sputtered out a protest at this and the being raised a hand to forestall his anger. “Mister Stark felt that knowledge would only distract you from your work, Doctor Selvig.”

Though Loki had never seen the strange creature before in his life, he was certain that he _knew_ him somehow…a bone deep familiarity that rattled him. “My apologies, I don’t believe we’ve-“ he broke off as the gleam of the stone set in the being’s forehead pulled at him, his eyes widening. “The scepter…”

The being lifted its fingers lightly to the stone, which pulsed briefly. “It was, or perhaps it is best to say _we were_ , part of your scepter in our previous state, yes,” it affirmed. “We were also once the entity known as JARVIS. I am now called Vision.”

“How ostentatious of you,” Loki commented drily, though a galaxy away he knew that his heart was pounding. Thanos had apparently entrusted him with an _Infinity Stone_ and he had foolishly _lost it._ If he was caught, it would be a very, _very_ long time before he died.

“Yes,” Vision replied. “It is hard to say if I learned the trait from you or Mister Stark.”

“I’m sorry to break up your tender reunion,” Erik cut in angrily, gesturing wildly at Vision. “But aren’t you supposed to be here for my protection? I assure you that I am _not_ safe anywhere near _Loki_.”

“Come now, Erik…you surely aren’t still upset about all that,” Loki scoffed. “It was nearly ten years ago!”

“Eight,” the astrophysicist corrected him gruffly. “Eight years, six months, seventeen days and-“ he glanced at his watch, “-forty-three minutes.”

“So you _did_ miss me,” Loki beamed at him, winking.

“Okay, now I’m pretty sure I made it clear to your brother that you were _not_ welcome on Earth,” yet _another_ voice joined in and Loki turned to see the same infuriating upstart of a wizard that had _briefly_ entrapped him in New York, though he was presently floating and non-corporeal. “That includes visitation of consciousness as well as physical body, in case that wasn’t clear.”

“ _You_ ,” Loki growled at him, eyes narrowed.

“Doctor Stephen Strange,” Vision greeted.

Erik looked between them like they’d gone mad, his eyes a little wild. “The hell are you talking to?”

“He can’t perceive me on this plane,” Strange explained, then nodded at Vision. “Though apparently _you_ can, so that’s…interesting.”

“We have been trying to get in contact with you for some time now,” Vision said. Inclining his head to the confused Swede he added, “Forgive us, Doctor Selvig. We have another visitor.”

“Oh, well, why not?” he said in exasperation. “You know, S.H.E.I.L.D. had its problems, but they did a better job at keeping their sites secured from shit like this.”

Strange looked around at Erik’s field laboratory and nodded to himself, folding his arms as his cape fluttered dramatically about him. “Avengers, right? Or is it New Avengers? Anyway, I’ve kind of got a lot going on without joining your little super hero club, thanks. And the whole government registration thing is…not my bag.”

“Enough of this,” Loki snarled suddenly, altogether fed up with Earth and its ever-evolving peculiarities. He stalked toward Erik, who flinched away from him. “Just give me what I came for and I’ll go.” He sighed when both Vision _and_ Strange moved between him and the astrophysicist, rolling his shoulders lightly. “Have it your way then.”

His magic had been feeling out at the stone in Vision’s head since he’d realized what it was, still tied to it in some way, as though Loki had been _changed_ by it in the past. Reaching for that connection now, Loki used the boost of its power to thrust his memories from Xandar upon the pair of them, showing them what was coming. They broke away from him quickly, Strange visibly shaken and even the implacable Vision seeming perturbed.

“That…that can’t be possible,” Strange protested, then laughed at the reflexive response because he’d seen his own share of crazy and knew full well how foolish it was to think _anything_ was impossible anymore.

“You are certain he will come for you?” Vision inquired gently.

“I’m certain he’ll come for _you_ soon after. He wants the Infinity Stones…and he knows where last I went with _that_ ,” Loki stated, gesturing at the softly glowing stone adorning Vision’s brow. “You _need_ Thor for what’s coming. You’ll most likely need your monster, if you can tame him. So help me get them here.”

“Monster?” Erik wondered in horror, even as Vision said, “Doctor Banner? You have Doctor Banner?”

“Hold on, the _Hulk?_ ” Strange protested, holding up a hand. “Nothing personal, Doctor Banner’s work is mostly respectable, but I’m also not crazy about having _him_ back on Earth, either.”

“I assure you,” Loki began, smiling darkly at them. “You’ll be far less enthusiastic about having _Thanos_ here.”

They were all quiet for a long moment before Vision calmly turned to face Erik. “Doctor Selvig,” he said gently. “If you would be so kind as to lend your assistance…I believe it to be in our best interests to form a temporary alliance.”

“This is a bad idea,” Strange muttered to himself, rubbing at his forehead. “I’m going to need a bigger book.”

######  _17:08:34:21_

After the night he spent on the _Commodore_ , Thor no longer bothered to pretend he held any resistance against his erstwhile brother. The week he had spent without him, determined to stay focused only to his kingly duties, had been utterly draining on his psyche and for what? To settle disputes between the castes over how a previously inaccessible _bar_ discovered on board should be allocated? To listen to the unending complaints of the courtiers in regards to their fallen status? Every minute, every hour was another reminder of how much he _hadn’t wanted to be king_. Thor had wanted to be a good man who did good deeds, not shackled to the crown.

At first he’d thought that Loki’s absence had been another of his games, designed to wake a thrill of expectation within Thor. Then, after a few cycles he began to wonder if he weren’t planning something darker, bored enough of their journey to fall to mischief. He kept meaning to ask Heimdall to look in on him, but every time he brought the sentinel to the forefront of his mind, Thor felt as though he’d just missed him. Finally, after a week of waiting, Thor began to fear that something was truly wrong and had stolen away into the _Commodore_ to find Loki.

By Yggdrasil had he found him.

Loki, for his part, seemed less willing to let Thor go even a single cycle untouched in some way since that night. Council meetings were never quite the spectacle of the first, but often spent with a secret voice purring all manner of filth and hungry promises into his ear, all fulfilled as soon as Thor gave in and ended the session. A few hours spent hearing and mollifying the complaints of the people were followed by Loki lazily fucking into his mouth while he recounted Thor’s decisions and pointed out both where he’d succeeded and where his choices were flawed. When he decreed that all able hands, regardless of caste, would participate both in the Valkyrie’s damage control drills and in a daily cleaning evolution about the ship, Loki had pulled him aside as though to give him counsel, only to softly say, “Tonight you’re going to fuck me on the throne,” as though the whole of Asgard weren’t assembled before them.

It was so much easier to give in to the intricacies that came with not just leading, but _ruling_ when Loki was there to lift the mantle for a little while, to take control. Thor had thought that he couldn’t allow himself to submit to Loki’s distraction from his people, but he could see now that he _needed_ the distraction to better serve their needs. He should have known that at some point Heimdall would confront him about it and the former Gatekeeper finally did so the night before they were due to arrive at X-J95.

“Your Majesty,” Heimdall greeted him with a deep nod as Thor opened his chambers to him.

“Heimdall!” Thor welcomed him with a broad smile. “It feels like an age since last I saw you, though I know that’s hardly true. Please, come in.”

Something flickered briefly in Heimdall’s expression, but he nodded and stepped inside. “The casualty of close quarters and full schedules, I think. I was hoping to speak to you about tomorrow.”

“Change your mind about coming with us?” Thor asked, giving him a knowing grin.

“No,” Heimdall said, shaking his head in the negative. “My place is here with the people. You have warriors enough to procure what we’ll need for the long journey ahead.” He hesitated briefly, then gave him a serious, significant look. “Perhaps one too many.”

Thor’s smile faltered and he sighed, turning away from Heimdall to fiddle with the decanters of what little alcohol he still kept in his room. “You speak of Loki,” he surmised.

“I do,” he affirmed solemnly. “Much is unknown about this planet and it would be all too easy for Loki to use this opportunity to escape.”

Stiffening, Thor frowned at him. “Loki isn’t a prisoner here.”

“No,” Heimdall relented, but the implication that he _should_ be was heavy in his tone. “But he has betrayed your trust countless times before now and never has he held so much sway over you. This distraction is _dangerous_ , Your Majesty, and it’s one the people have begun to notice.”

Thor turned and braced his fists against the gleaming alien surface of his table, staring first at the decanters below him, then at his own face in the mirror. It was an argument that he’d had with himself countless times in the weeks since this began, yet it only rang hollow to his ears now. Shaking his head, Thor let out a sigh as he finally broke the long, tense silence, his voice low.

“I lost everything, Heimdall. My father, my hammer, my kingdom, my freedom, even my _hair,_ ” he said the last with a small, deprecating smile, straightening and turning to lean against the table. “I lost it all. Everything except…him. My one gain in all this. Loki destroyed all that was left for me without a second thought and could have easily disappeared then. Left me to mourn his sacrifice and returned to Sakaar or hidden among the people to start his games anew. But he didn’t. Loki returned to me.”

“Just because he does not hide from you now does not mean that-“

“Heimdall,” Thor forestalled him, his voice gentle, but firm. “Enough…I won’t turn Loki away from me now. I didn’t want to be king, I haven’t wanted to for a long time, but I try to be a good one for you…for the people. Loki, he…he makes me a better king.” Rubbing a hand over the back of his neck, he sighed and shook his head. “I don’t expect you to understand it or seek your approval, but he…grounds me. Anchors me when the enormity of all that I’ve lost and the task ahead threatens to set me adrift. I want him at my side, for as long as he’ll allow it.”

For a fleeting moment, the normally implacable sentinel of Asgard looked angered by his words, _wounded_ by them, but it passed so quickly that Thor wasn’t certain whether or not his eye had deceived him. Silence lay heavy between them as though Thor’s words still hung in the air, but finally Heimdall inclined his head respectfully and lowered his gaze.

“As my king commands,” he said stonily.

Thor flinched slightly at the words, remembering all the ways they’d been whispered into his skin, but shook it off with a flush. “Thank you, my friend,” he said, though he bore a small flicker of unease in his heart.

The whole ship seemed alive with excitement as they entered orbit above the small, colorful planet the next morning, shaded in blues and greens and desert yellows that bore passing resemblance to Midgard. Despite that the vast majority of the population would not step foot upon the surface, just seeing a planetary body so close to them now was some small comfort. The _Foundation_ was equipped with a number of escape shuttles, but none of them were designed to return to the ship once launched. Likewise the _Commodore_ had suffered enough damage in the fall of Asgard that it was unlikely to survive passing through the planet’s atmosphere for all the trips required to stock up their stores.

That left them with only two options; burn through all their reserve fuel to land the _Foundation_ herself and hope that they would not need the excess throughout the rest of their journey, or lose a week to shuttling replenishments back and forth utilizing the two small transport vessels they had on board, each able to carry a team of only eight. Korg had gleefully painted a crude depiction of a goat upon each of the hulls and inexplicably christened them _Grinder_ and _Gnasher_.

Ultimately they had erred on the side of caution and decided to devote one party to hunting and the other to gathering. Korg and Miek, recently outfitted with a fairly passable exo-suit by some of the engineers on board, would be accompanying Idunn and some of her best and brightest on board _Grinder_ to investigate the local flora and gather what they could. Thor and Loki would be joining the Valkyrie on _Gnasher_ for the hunting party, along with a number of warriors she had determined suitable to join them. She looked ecstatic and slightly tipsy as Thor approached the group in Hangar Bay Three, laughing rather raucously with the other hunters and shoving gleefully at Loki.

“Lighten up, already!” Thor heard her chide the rather dour faced sorcerer. “Just think of all that fresh air, sunlight…and giant, scaly monsters for us to butcher! Really, what more could you ask at this point?”

“They aren’t scaled,” Bruce spoke up, looking uncomfortable and out of place as he edged closer to the group. “From what I’ve seen of the scans, most of them have high levels of collagen in their skin, likely in a subdermal lattice structure that affords them protection. Many of them have keratin-based armor plating and horns, as well.”

“Bruce!” the Valkyrie exclaimed in near breathless delight, stepping forward to put a hand on his arm. “ _Please_ tell me you changed your mind about hunting with us.”

Bruce managed to look even more discomforted by the way her face had lit up at the sight of him, though there was a hint of awe in his gaze. “I…no. Not exactly,” he admitted. “I’ve changed my mind about coming, but I’m going with the gatherers. As a scientist. I…have degrees in biology and botany.”

“Ah,” she said, letting her hand fall as her smile dimmed. “Well, I’m sure that will be…useful.”

“So that’s still awkward,” Thor commented softly to Loki, coming to stand beside him.

“As if I needed more proof of her insanity,” Loki muttered back, shaking his head. He looked worn down in the glow of the planet beyond their atmospheric shields, a small, solemn furrow to his brow.

Nudging him lightly, Thor canted his head toward him in concern. “Are you alright? Everyone else looks ready to jump off ship if it’ll get us there faster. You look like you’re being held captive.”

Loki managed a small, wry smile at that, though it hardly reached his eyes. “Hunting was always your sport, brother…not mine.” He held up a hand when Thor looked stricken, forestalling any apologies or suggestions that he remain behind. “I’m here,” he said simply.

A horn sounded as they neared the launch window and the Valkyrie turned to face them all, voice rising above it. “Right, let’s get on board and get ready to move out! Get everyone back behind those lines unless they fancy some nice thruster burns!”

Excited tension hummed through the air, but everyone dutifully followed her command, well used to being ordered about by her after weeks of her voice running them through drills over the mass communications system. Thor smiled a little at the sight and wondered if perhaps she might be willing to raise the Valkyrior anew, to stand as leader of a new sisterhood of Valkyries. She caught him looking at her and gave him a sharp look.

“That _includes you_ , Your Majesty!” she barked at him, though her smile was teasing.

Holding up his hand in supplication, Thor grinned and hurried on board the transport shuttle. Korg waved at him cheerfully from the other shuttle, standing beside a sullen Bruce who was eyeing the atmospheric shields nervously. Waving back good-naturedly, Thor couldn’t help but empathize with the Midgardian. Despite being familiar with the technology, he couldn’t help but feel a chill at the thought of the vacuum beyond the kinetic barrier of their shields. It was a relief when the Valkyrie boarded at last and they sealed up the shuttle doors, providing a more tangible obstruction between himself and the void.

Looking to Loki again, Thor felt another pang of guilt to see him look so quietly resigned, tired as though he hadn’t slept in some days, though he knew with some certainty that Loki _had_. He opened his mouth to bid him remain behind to rest when the Valkyrie powered up the shuttle and they rose up to hover over the deck.

“Strap in!” she crowed, grinning fiercely to have her hands on the controls of a ship again, even if it was just a transport vessel. “I’ve a mind to get down there _quickly_.”

“Preferably in one piece, if you don’t mind!” Loki called to her over the second blare of the horn that announced the beginning of the launch window, strapping himself into one of the jump seats.

Thor strapped himself in across from Loki, glancing nervously up at the cockpit when the Valkyrie only laughed wildly in answer. He had barely managed his buckle before she was streaking out of the hangar like a comet, slipping through the shields and down toward the planet. He shuddered violently and keenly felt the loss of the gasses that made up life support on board the _Foundation_. Starved for a living world, he’d actually managed to become attuned to them, even going so far as to draw up mist and small clouds if he concentrated. The transport had less than a hundred cubic feet of breathable air to work with and Thor ached with the loss.

“If you sick up on me, you’ll regret it,” Loki warned with a faint, teasing smile, though in all honesty he didn’t look much better off than Thor.

“I never get ill in flight!” Thor protested, glad for the distraction. “I have flown regularly for most my life, you realize. But don’t worry, brother, I’ll hold your hair back should you need it.”

Rolling his eyes, Loki snorted. “If you’re referring to when we first went to Midgard, I would remand you to our time on Utgard…”

“Now that’s hardly fair, you weren’t tricked into drinking seawater!” Thor laughed, through it died out abruptly when his breath caught from the first brush of the shuttle against the thermosphere. It was faint, the air there, too faint to survive in, but he could feel the charge of particles there beyond the hull.

The Valkyrie cursed spectacularly as lights broke out in the sky around them, a dancing borealis that obscured her view. “What in the nine realms…hold on, everyone! There’s a storm forming up right below us! I’ll see if I can’t get around it.”

Thor heard her as though at a great distance, blind to all around him as he felt the pull of the planet below growing stronger and clearer with every passing moment. Sparks began to light upon his skin, the air charged and growing thick with the scent of ozone. Pale fingers scrabbled at his harness suddenly, unbuckling him from the jump seat.

“Open the door!” Loki called to the Valkyrie, pulling Thor to standing, though his limbs were heavy and unwieldy.

“What?” she demanded in shock, casting a glance back their way. “Are you mad? We’re still more than twenty kilometers from the surface! The storm-“

“It’s not a storm, it’s _Thor_ ,” he insisted sharply. “He’s manipulating the weather! I really don’t think we want him on board when we enter the troposphere, do you?”

“Fuck the peculiarities of the Aesir and Vanir!” the Valkyrie snarled, but punched at the console to release their cabin pressure. “Can he survive the fall?”

“With any luck, he can fly,” Loki muttered to himself, grimacing as the pressure changed and heaving Thor over to the door. Looping his arm through a strap to keep from being pulled out, Loki pulled the release.

The wind tore Thor away immediately and he went to it like a lost lover, letting it surround him, fill him with the promise of life. Gone was the void, the hollow emptiness that had plagued him since the fall of Asgard; or perhaps since the arrival of Hela, heralded by the death of a father he’d questioned too little for the love of him. All that remained now was the assurance of life and the fury of the storm and Thor gave himself to it gladly.

######  _00:00:30:03_

“Is it ready?” Loki demanded the moment he stepped into Banner’s lab, his tone sharp.

Bruce whirled away from the window to look at Loki, eyes wide and a bit wild about the edges. “ _You!_ I told you- Wait, what? Is what ready?”

“The _device_ ,” Loki stressed impatiently, striding over to the work table to examine the machine Bruce had been constructing in the weeks since he’d first planted the designs in the scientist’s mind.

“How did you…” Bruce trailed off as he looked at the device, _really_ looked at it for perhaps the first time since he’d started on it. “That…that’s Selvig’s stabilization framework for the Tesseract,” he said numbly, feeling as though he were rousing from a dream. “Why...why did I _build_ that?” His voice deepened as green started to creep in around the edges, but he froze when Loki whirled on him and pressed the Tesseract to his chest.

“ _Do it_ ,” he hissed, his eyes flashing gold. “Set the monster free, I _dare_ you. Do you really think I want you anywhere _near_ Earth? Just give me a reason to send you right back to Sakaar.”

With effort, Bruce fought back the Hulk, not taking his eyes off of the trickster god before him. There wasn’t much he and his other half agreed on, but Loki’s mental state was one of them. The Hulk wanted to return to his glory on Sakaar…but not if that was what _Loki_ wanted.

“It’s complete enough to stabilize the Tesseract, but not direct it,” Bruce ground out, his vision tunneling slightly with the strain of staying in his own skin. “And it doesn’t have a power source.”

Loki grinned fiercely and there was an edge of madness to it that Bruce remembered from New York. “I have a power source,” he assured him. “Show me how it works.”

######  _45:03:23:55_

Bruce managed to be unfailingly difficult to work with even when Loki wasn’t _directly_ interacting with him. It took more than two cycles to worm his way into the scientist’s mind in a way that didn’t have him going green at the slightest push. The problem was that he was so determined to be anxious and maudlin in turn about the long hold the monster had kept on their shared body, so that any little whisper from Loki had him closed off and paranoid. Finally Loki managed to work in the idea that committing himself to science and ingenuity was the surest way to keep the scientist at the forefront of his own mind and Bruce clung to the concept desperately.

From there, it was almost too easy to pass Erik Selvig’s designs into Bruce’s mind, along with enough spellwork to keep him from realizing what it was he was building. To Bruce, he was simply executing the construction of a plan he’d drawn up with Tony Stark some years past, not playing puppet to Loki’s machinations by building the very device that had nearly decimated New York.

When at last he had Bruce where he wanted him, Loki stopped to assess the situation and found himself conflicted. There was a far simpler solution to all this, a course of action that could be carried out _immediately_. Cursing himself for his foolishness, Loki recovered his stolen prize from where he had hidden her on board the _Commodore_ , concealing the cube in the same fold of his magic where he kept his armament before making his way to the king’s chamber. The Tesseract demanded too much of him for Loki to wield her effectively, but he knew her well enough to open a small tear in space.

Thor wasn’t in his room when Loki arrived, but he didn’t bother to search elsewhere, knowing how his adoptive brother used the night cycle to escape the constant weight of the crown. Instead, he looked out at Midgard, casting his gaze out among the stars until he found the cliffs of Norway. Almost unconsciously, he built the scene around himself, mimicking it perfectly, an illusion borne fully of truth. The air seemed to change when Thor found him there, his very presence making the room come alive in some way it had been missing before. Loki heard the whisper of grass as his king joined him, a solid warmth at his side.

“Loki? Is this a dream?”

He could take Thor tonight and run. With the Tesseract and Heimdall’s gift in his possession, Thanos would never be able to catch them, would never gain whatever terrible power would be born of the assemblage of the Infinity Stones. Would that be enough for Thor? To know that by running, they were saving the universe from total destruction?

No…of course it wouldn’t. Thor would never abandon Asgard, just as he would never abandon Midgard or any of the nine realms he felt so burdened by. If Thor were a great king, perhaps he might see reason when Loki swept him away, see how their leaving might even give the people their best chance at survival. But Thor _wasn’t_ a great king…he was a good man. A hero. Heroes didn’t run; they fought even when they knew the battle was lost, when they knew standing their ground meant facing their death. Loki wasn’t a hero, had no aspirations to be so thoughtless and rash…yet he couldn’t bear the thought of going alone.

Loki didn’t _want_ to leave _Thor_. How utterly ridiculous.

“I’m here.”

######  00:00:34:17 

The sea churned about Thor, tossing him among the waves with little care to how his mind and body reeled to be so suddenly displaced. Rough and shockingly cold, the raging sea only churned up higher when he instinctively reached for the skies above, drawing a snarling storm into the clouds overhead. A blue flash of light caught his eye and he finally forced himself to calm when he saw a body drop through it, plunging into the depths. Pushing his arms through the water, he expected to find Loki there and stopped short when he recognized Heimdall’s dark skin slipping beneath the waves.

“ _Heimdall_ ,” he breathed out in shock, then dove under to catch him. Pulling him to the surface with effort, Thor checked to be certain he still lived, the sentinel’s body unnaturally cold and heavy in his arms.

“Thor…” Heimdall coughed weakly, clearing his mouth of seawater. “Loki…he’s-“

“Just breathe, Heimdall!” Thor called, looking about them as he struggled to keep the weakened man afloat.

Bogged down as he was by the sea and his burden, Thor was in no position to take to the skies, assuming he could manage that feat at all. His progress on X-J95 had been mixed at best. Lightning cracked overhead and in the flash of light he could see dark, unforgiving shapes that had to be rocks and began moving them in that direction. It felt as though it took an age, the waves and the wind and the weight of his burden doing their very best to keep Thor from reaching his goal. Dragging Heimdall onto the rocks without being simply slammed carelessly upon the stone was a challenge, but he somehow managed it, grateful to have solidity beneath his feet. Once the former Gatekeeper was free of the bite of the water he began to move easier, warmth returning sluggishly to his limbs, and he helped Thor get them higher onto their refuge from the briny depths.

Looking at Heimdall now, really _looking_ at him, Thor thought he must have been under Loki’s spell since that first night Loki took him in his rooms. He remembered now how little he’d actually _spoken_ to Heimdall in the time since then, yet how he’d always felt as though they had just seen one another. Thor had even _joked_ that Loki had been holding Heimdall captive, only to find now how very true that was. The knowledge burned with every breath like a dagger between his ribs.

“We had no warning…you weren’t able to tell us what you saw coming,” Thor said hoarsely, his body trembling in anger.

“No,” Heimdall disagreed, shaking his head wearily. “I had no way of seeing it.”

“Can you see what’s happening now? Are they-“

“ _No_ , Thor,” Heimdall said again, his voice stronger, cut through with his own anger for a warning that had months ago gone ignored. “I _cannot see_. He has taken my _eyes_.” He looked at Thor then and felt a thread of vindictive pleasure to see the dim shape of him recoil at the sight of his unbroken red eyes…a frost giant’s eyes.

“No…” Thor whispered in horror. “Heimdall, I…I’m s-“

“Apologize to me now and I swear that I will strike you down,” Heimdall said, his face a mask of cold rage and betrayal. “I _cautioned_ you against trusting him. I bade you focus on your _people_. And now, here we are!” His voice rose to a shout as he gestured around them. “Stranded! Abandoned! Loki has _betrayed us all_. And you. Let _._ Him _._ ”

There were no words Thor could offer in the face of Heimdall’s wrath, no justification for what had happened to him or the fact that their people now faced certain death while he stood on a rock in the ocean a galaxy away. He had no doubt that this was Earth, had long ago learned the particular flavor of her skies when they came to his call. Why had Loki left him here? There was no art to it, no subtlety or even humor that he could detect in the act of abandonment, such as he was used to. It had been quick, efficient and without ceremony, without grandstanding.

In the distance, an unnatural blue light flickered into being, highlighting a cliff high above the roiling sea and Thor felt his heart stutter at the sight of it. “He hasn’t betrayed us,” he whispered in dismayed realization. “This isn’t some cruel trick. By the Norns…this is so much worse.”

######  _00:00:25:30_

Slotting the Tesseract into her framework, Loki gave the machine a quick onceover from where he stood in the central hangar of the _Foundation_ , steadfastly ignoring distant screams as Thanos’ new army of disproportionately loyal and infinitely disposable creatures tunneled into the hull. Overhead, the Valkyrie finally finished arguing with his illusion of Thor and abruptly sounded the call to abandon ship. Straightening, Loki called his armor to him even as the hangar began to fill with frightened, determined faces, his hands tight around Gungnir’s golden haft; another treasure absconded in the wake of Ragnarok. Slowly, he lowered the spear’s point to Banner’s device and closed his eyes, casting outward with his power along the faint connection he felt to the stone at Vision’s brow and to the golden halls that lay in the dreams of Asgard’s king.

“Asgard,” Loki murmured softly, tightening his grip on the Spear of Heaven. “To me.”

It was as though a window opened in his mind and the dead poured through it. Golden light shone through the hangar now as the warriors of Valhalla spread out, real and solid and yet limned with ethereal light. A brilliant wash of blue followed as the Tesseract woke and Loki directed her gaze toward Midgard, spawning a dozen portals about him, leading not to the sea, but to high grassy cliffs where Vision was waiting for them. For a moment, none of the living moved, too overwhelmed by what their eyes told them could not possibly be true. Then the first of the Outriders breached the hull and chaos descended upon them all.

Loki kept his golden gaze fixed firmly on Earth and trusted the Einherjar to take care of the Outriders even as he pulled at them one by one, feeding the Tesseract the souls of the departed to keep the portals open. Distantly he became aware of the Valkyrie shouting at him, her eyes wide and wild with all that was happening in the hangar.

“You stupid, lying, sacrificial _arsehole!_ ” she yelled even as she slayed an Outrider who had managed to get far too close to him. “If we survive this, I’ll-“

“Go!” he shouted at her, blind to all but the Tesseract and the distant cliffs above a roiling sea, a storm brewing ominously in the distance. “Take the Valkyrior and your monster through the portals and make sure none of those creatures make it through to the other side!” A thought came to him and he called out among the valiant dead. “Fandral! Hogun! Volstagg! Find Thor and make sure he _stays_ on _Earth!_ ”

“Of course he foists the truly impossible task upon us,” Volstagg groused nearby.

“At least we won’t be bored,” Hogun commented.

“You’re quite mad, Loki!” Fandral said jovially. “I’d think you’d know better than anyone how stubborn our king can be!”

“Just _go!_ ” Loki snarled at them and watched from galaxies away as they poured through the portals alongside a steady stream of Asgardian’s.

The Valkyrie hung back, gripping his shoulder as though she could pass her strength to him as she leaned in close. “Start we swiftly with steeds unsaddled,” she chanted to him softly, yet he could hear her easily above the din and noise. “And hence to battle with brandished swords.”

“Go,” Loki told her again, but it was a gentle farewell and she squeezed his arm in answer, then left to join her sisters in the glory of battle once more.

######  _16:23:55:12_

Loki had never once intended to leave the _Foundation_ when they reached X-J95, had resigned himself to the task of playing nursemaid as Heimdall while the others carelessly reveled in their freedom on the planet below. He should have known that such a strategy wouldn’t come to fruition, because Thor had a talent for laying waste to Loki’s best laid plans. It would be foolish to say that he was anything other than wholly grateful for it now, because Thor was _gone_ and Loki was going to have to get him _back_.

Slamming his hand on the manual override to force the outer door closed again, Loki slumped against it and panted, calling over his shoulder, “He’s out! Get us down!” Holding tightly to the strap overhead rather than try to make it back to the jump seat, Loki let the sound of the Valkyrie’s cursing fade away as he cast his consciousness upward to the _Foundation_.

When he’d realized that he would be unsuccessful in talking Thor out of bringing him along, Loki had instead spent the night cycle finding a simple minded commoner of a similar height to Heimdall and weaved a thick web of spells about him. It would be too much a strain on his psyche to split himself over the distance consistently to maintain the illusion, and with such falsehood came the risk of exposure due to something as simple as physical touch. The false Heimdall he’d installed just hours before had no recollection of anything other than being the gatekeeper of Asgard, thanks to the memories Loki had copied from his captive. He stood impassively upon the bridge, staring out the window as though he could see what was happening below, though that power did not live in him.

 _“Tell them that Thor has left the ship. When the report comes back, refuse to sacrifice one of the escape vessels to send in support. A search party is an unnecessary risk. The mission comes first, trust in the king to return,”_ he whispered into the counterfeit Heimdall’s mind. Waiting to be sure the command had taken hold, Loki returned to his physical form just as _Gnasher_ came to an abrupt stop on the planet’s surface, jarring him.

The Valkyrie quickly unstrapped herself, launching up out of her seat. “You!” she snapped, pointing at one of the hunter’s she’d brought along. “Get in communication with the _Foundation_ and tell them what happened.” Reaching around Loki, she pressed the door release and hopped out onto the grass below, looking around. “Do you see him?”

Loki got out less steadily, for he was already looking farther than she possibly could towards the inexorable pull of his king. “He’s there,” he said, pointing toward a dark whirl of clouds. “I’m certain of it.”

“Of course he is! Fuck!” she swore, running her hands over the tight braids of her hair. “Everything’s gone wrong so quickly…he should never have come if he couldn’t keep himself under control!”

“Valkyrie!” the hunter called from inside the vessel. “Heimdall says the king is alright! Says to move forward with our objective.”

“What? I can’t _believe_ he’s just…” she growled in frustration, then sighed. “ _Fine_. Fine! We’ll just ignore that the king is currently brewing his own little hurricane and go about our business then.”

“I’ll go after him,” Loki said decidedly. “Stay here and get the encampment ready. I’ll go and fetch Thor before he drowns all our game in a flood.”

The Valkyrie studied him closely for a moment, as though trying to determine whether or not this had been one of his games, then nodded finally. “I’ll give you until dark to get him sorted, then I’m coming after you. With _this_.” She held up one of the Grandmaster’s control tags threateningly and Loki flinched instinctively at the sight of it.

“Have you been carrying that with you all this time?” he asked her incredulously.

Grinning dangerously, the Valkyrie shrugged and pocketed the disc again. “Why shouldn’t I? They’re quite useful.”

“They’re _barbaric_ ,” he told her scathingly, feeling secretly enamored of her unapologetic deviousness.

She shoved at him and nodded toward the storm with a smirk. “You’d better get going then. I’ve got two.”

Shuddering reflexively at the thought, Loki scowled at her and started forward into a broad stride, moving well out of range of _Gnasher’s_ still cooling thrusters before he let his magic wrap around him and fell forward onto four hooves. Tossing the loose curls of his mane, Loki reared back on his hind legs simply because he knew how impressive he looked as a horse. His large, powerful body bore a coat that was not simply black, but _iridescent_ as a raven’s wing, shimmering faintly in the sunlight.

“Show off!” the Valkyrie called after him. “Try not to get eaten!”

Loki whinnied in reply and was off as soon as his hooves touched down again, thundering across the grassy plain toward the storm. He’d been so distracted by their eventful landing that he hadn’t realized how _good_ it felt to be planetside again, the air fresh and crisp as it worked through the bellows of his broad chest. It had been ages since he’d last shifted into an animal form and Loki felt briefly free of the burden of Thanos’ rising power, surrendering himself to the sun and the air and the earth churning beneath the fall of his hooves.

By virtue of his magic, Loki ran far faster than any common mount, bounding over rivers and cutting around immense trees with ease. He saw some of the gargantuan creatures that inhabited this world in his passage, but they were agitated by the supernatural quality of the storm and the sight of a small, strange creature in their midst was not cause enough to give chase. Rather, many of the beasts shied away from the otherworldliness of his form, bellowing defensive challenges as though to ward Loki off. It was immensely satisfying and served to buoy his mood even as the rain began to fall, soaking him through and softening the ground under hoof.

An incredible oak tree rose in the distance beneath the apex of the storm, growing ever larger at Loki’s approach. As he came nearer, he realized that it was not just the distance giving it the illusion of gaining height, but that the tree was, in fact, _growing_. Loki slowed as he came near, the world gone dark beneath the heavy burden of the clouds circling overhead, broken in flashes of light by the clap of thunder. That wild tangle of lightning was why Loki had chosen to run, rather than take wing in his choice of form.

When he was near enough to make out Thor beneath the tree, Loki changed back and approached him carefully, taking in the sight he had glimpsed at a distance back with the Valkyrie. Thor knelt in a thick bed of tall grass beneath the outstretched boughs of oak, his back arched unnaturally as he cast his gaze upward, unseeing. The tree seemed to shudder and grow with every slow breath he took, the swell of his chest pushing its branches ever higher even as the fall of lightning sometimes sent them crashing back to the sodden earth below. He looked every inch a god in that moment, wild and untamed as the storm raging above them, yet rooted in his power, strong enough to change the very nature of the planet.

Approaching Thor, Loki circled him slowly to drink it all in, the taste of ozone heavy in the charged air, so thick with power that it felt almost a physical touch against his skin. He closed his eyes briefly to revel in it, thinking of how once not so long ago this would have borne an ugly, resentful jealousy in him, but now…now he reveled in it because _Thor_ was _his_. And he would have him now.

Stepping out of his boots and stripping out of his hunting leathers, Loki tossed them almost carelessly aside and the linen tunic underneath shortly after. Standing bare before Thor, Loki smoothed a hand over his face, looking into his wide, sightless eye, blazing bright with energy. “Come back to me, Thor…” he said to him softly, caressing the softness of his beard. “Come home.”

Bending, Loki pressed a gentle kiss to Thor’s slack lips, stroking his fingers through his hair and down his strong neck. He found the clasps in the light armor Thor wore and worked them open, undressing him while he continued to murmur softly against his mouth. Once he’d bared his chest, Loki laid his palm flat against his sternum, letting his fingers rest in the dip of his collarbone and Thor took a shuddering, ragged breath, blinking once.

“Loki…” he mouthed, less spoken so much as felt.

“I’m here,” Loki said, sliding his hands over the broad strength of his body and licking lightly at his lips. “Come back to me.”

Thor moved sluggishly, as though waking from a dream and Loki slid his hands down to unlace his leathers, cupping the soft length of him in a warm, possessive hand before he started to encourage it to fullness. Slowly, Thor brought his hands to Loki’s face, touching him lightly, as though he would break apart under the weight of his fingertips. After a moment, his arms snapped back into position, outstretched at his sides as though held by unseen bonds. Lightning cracked overhead and another branch broke away from the oak tree, falling heavily a short ways from them.

“Loki…” he said again, a whisper of sound like a distant rumble of thunder.

“I have you,” Loki promised, stroking him slowly until Thor was hard in his hand. He tried to ease his body into a better arrangement, but Thor was seemingly rooted to the spot, as unyielding as Mjolnir had been. “Always so stubborn,” he chided him affectionately and moved astride Thor’s immobile form instead.

It wasn’t without complication to straddle Thor where he knelt, but Loki was equally hard-headed and had magic on his side, which he used shamelessly now to bolster his position. A pleased sigh passed from his mouth to Thor’s as he drew him inside the wet, ready heat of his flesh, shuddering a little at the intrusion. It wasn’t the first time that he had done so since the night he’d first opened himself to Thor, but it happened infrequently enough that his body ached with the stretch to accommodate him. He rolled his hips in a slow grind once he was fully seated, keeping Thor selfishly inside himself rather than make an effort to bring him pleasure.

“Will you not attend me, my king?” Loki teased in a low purr, lips curved in a mocking challenge. He leaned back to brace his arms against the earth, presenting his body in a sinuous stretch. “Touch me, Thor. I am a jealous lover…I allow you only to lose yourself in _me._ ”

Little by little, Thor pulled himself together, then all at once he snapped free from the hold of his power, seizing Loki’s hips in a bruising grip. Loki gasped as his shoulders hit the ground, arching against Thor, who splayed his thighs wide beneath Loki’s hips and thrust sharply into the yield of his body. There was nothing tender or caring about the way Thor used him, completely removed from the civility of man he was used to and become instead a wild creature of nature, rutting against him almost mindlessly. It woke something primal within Loki and if he noticed his illusions slip away, he hardly cared; the thickening nails tipping his ice blue fingers digging into the burning, tanned skin of Thor’s powerful arms.

Thunder rumbled in Thor’s chest like a growl when frost bit at his flesh and he pulled away from Loki suddenly, turning him even as Loki rolled and shoved back on his hands and knees to meet him. They had never once coupled in this way, Loki unwilling to expose the beautiful mutilation of his flesh or to surrender his dominion and Thor unwilling to take it. It didn’t feel as though he wasn’t in control though, rather it felt as though Loki was finally satisfying some deep, forgotten part of him with the raw need they shared now, taking from one another like beasts…like _gods_.

Pushing himself upright, Loki leaned back into Thor and deliberately pressed the golden lines of his glyph against the expanse of his chest, barely noticing the arms that came around to hold him there. Head tilted back, he arched in a soundless cry as he was flooded with Thor’s power; the fury of the storm where it pulled at the very atmosphere, the strength of the tree as it dug deep into the earth, the sheer force of _life_ blazing inside of him. Loki pulled it all into himself greedily, jealously drawing it out of the sky and the earth until he held it all fiercely in the seat of his magic. The squall calmed almost at once, the last echoes of thunder dying away, and then snow began to fall, fluttering down around them in thick, white flakes.

[](http://aivelin.tumblr.com/post/172387677746/commission-by-godofhammers-ao3-thunderfrost)

Loki didn’t want to share Thor with _anyone_ ; not Thanos, not Asgard, not even the very _planet._ He wanted only this moment, this singular moment to stretch out into infinity where he could hold Thor completely inside of him, capture every part of him for his own. This wasn’t love, this _couldn’t_ be love, but Loki wasn’t certain they’d given name to how he yearned for Thor.

“ _Loki_ ,” Thor growled finally and Loki wasn’t certain whether or not he heard it with his ears or his mind. He turned Loki’s face in a firm grip, kissing him with his own brand of possession for once, his mouth open and hot and filthy. “ _Release me._ ” He bucked his hips up into him sharply, holding onto him with unbending force.

“A-as my…my -king…” Loki struggled to speak against the raw energy that filled him to the brim.

“ _Now_ ,” Thor commanded him and Loki roared as he let the force of life that was Thor free from within the well of his magic, the bellow of a frost giant tearing from his chest.

Jerking forward, Loki slammed his hands back down on the ground and a wave of ice shot outward from them, racing along the roots, savaging the tree that stretched above them. Loki was blind to it, deaf to the loud pop of sap freezing too quickly, senseless even to his own orgasm as it tore through his body, to Thor shuddering through his own at his back. For an endless moment he was simply the sum of their powers, unable to tell where one ended and the other began, lost in the duality of their natures and reveling in it. When at last he came back to himself, the clouds had all gone, allowing the sun to shine down through the boughs of the oak tree, heavy and hot with summer as it worked to dry off their deluge. Thor held him against his chest, lips pressed to his hair as the warmth of his fingers followed the lines of Loki’s true heritage, swirling over his skin.

“I love you,” Thor whispered into his hair.

Loki closed his eyes and pretended not to have heard him.

######  _00:00:08:42_

Pain was all that Loki knew down to his very cells, yet he felt now as though he could not stop even if he wanted to. It was as though all that remained of him was the Tesseract and Gungnir and the space he had folded together all around his motionless body. Faintly he could feel that his face was wet and could not be sure if he wept tears or blood as his stolen eyes gazed unblinking through the ether.

He could see Korg and the few remaining gladiators working to direct the refugees on Earth, keeping everyone moving out and away from the portals so that more could come through in an endless, panicked flow. The Hulk had emerged and followed the Valkyrie’s direction to start taking up armfuls of Asgardians, carrying them a great distance in massive leaps. Two score of the Outrider army broke through a line of the Einherjar to overrun one of the portals and Loki slammed it shut without hesitation, ignoring the terrified screams of those who had been trying to escape through it. Strange had arrived at some point and had created some kind of crystalline shield about the huddled masses, drawing them in and protecting them from the stragglers that broke through to Earth from the _Foundation_ until the Valkyrior could lay waste to them.

Twenty minutes…at their fastest it had taken them twenty minutes to run the drill to abandon ship, yet it seemed now that there was no end to their number. The golden light of the Einherjar was fading from the hangar, the warriors whittled down by the apparently limitless numbers of the Outrider army and the relentless hunger of the Tesseract.

 _‘There isn’t time to save them all,’_ Vision spoke directly into his mind where they were tethered. He had been floating above the fray on Earth, a steady beacon for Loki to guide the Tesseract’s power toward.

“There’s time enough,” he ground out with effort, though even the sound of his voice pained him, shredding his throat like glass.

 _‘Loki…you are dying,’_ Vision replied with gentle compassion.

A maddened grin split his lips wide and he laughed terribly. “On the contrary,” Loki said with gleeful malice. “I’m already dead.” His mirthless laughter cut off quite suddenly when a golden hand laid over his own upon the spear, a rapid balm spreading through the contact.

“Let go, my son,” Odin said to him, his voice kind, yet firm in its command.

The shock of it hit him so heavily that Loki unthinkingly tore his eyes away to look upon his father, the sight of him as soothing to the pained motes of his being as his touch. The connection hardly wavered as the All-Father took it up with his own Sight, the portals shining bright about them in answer to his power.

“Father…” he whispered brokenly.

Odin smiled grimly, his eye cast forward to Midgard with all the surety of Yggdrasil herself at his back. “A king must know when to sacrifice and when to allow others to be sacrificed in his place,” he told Loki.

“Let go,” Frigga repeated her husband’s command imploringly from Loki’s other side, pulling him gently away from Gungnir.

“Mother, please!” Loki begged her, shaking his head. “Don’t do this.” He hadn’t called _her_ to this task. He hadn’t called either of them.

“There’s no worthier sacrifice a parent can hope to make for their child,” she told him lovingly, stroking his face and easing him to the ground as his body gave out without the force of the Tesseract to keep him upright. “You’ll understand that soon enough.”

With a last, lingering touch to his cheek, Frigga straightened and took her place at her husband’s side, laying her hands over his on the Spear of Heaven and resting her cheek upon his chest. Odin let his own head rest against her golden hair and the pair of them stood as lovers and warriors and royalty all at once.

“For Asgard,” Frigga said warmly.

“For our sons,” Odin said in answer.

Loki wept miserably beside them even as the hangar bay began to empty of all but the dead or dying, the Einherjar fortified by the All-Father’s might, driving the Outriders into a retreat. He wasn’t sure that he wasn’t dying still as his…his _parents_ fed their souls to the Tesseract’s ravenous need. The sound of his name woke him from his hollow state and his heart leapt and twisted in turn to know that it was Thor. Raising his eyes, Loki could barely see through the haze of pain still lingering in him, but he still somehow found him easily through the chaos and death on either side of the portals, struggling against the golden trio that was the Warriors Three. Thor’s face was a rictus of fear and fury and something desperate and fragile that Loki didn’t want to think about as he called to him again.

Slowly, Loki managed to find his footing, letting the weight of his armor fall away as he pushed himself to standing. With Odin and Frigga’s sacrifice, he could go to him, could leave the horror of the void and fight alongside Thor in the war to come. Maybe they would even stand a chance. As though Thor could see the change in him, he stopped fighting and instead held out his hands to beckon Loki through. Hope hung between them on a tenuous thread for a brief, tremulous moment…and then broke as Thanos walked into the hangar.

“I should have known that you would resist the inevitable to the bitter end,” he said calmly, his footsteps masked by the sudden hammering of Loki’s heart.

With a last, desperate look to Thor, Loki turned and pulled the Tesseract free of her framework. As the portals collapsed to nothing, Gungnir fell from lifeless hands and shattered in a cascade of gold, the once prevailing armament now only dust as her kingdom was dust…and her king.

“My dear Lord Thanos,” Loki managed raggedly, drawing himself up to smile as cordially as he could. “I’ve been expecting you.”

######  _**00:00:00:00** _

Everything stopped as the portals closed, or at least it seemed that way to Thor, who couldn’t hear anything beyond the sound of his own jagged breathing. It was strange to hear, for if anyone had asked him, he would have said that he couldn’t possibly breathe around the vice constricting his chest, suffocating him entirely. The skies opened even as the last of the invading armies were slain, a deluge pouring down upon the survivors, who laughed and cried in equal measure, mostly in shock. A few near him screamed as lightning arced down and struck the place where he’d last seen Loki, hurt and bleeding, but _alive_ and now…gone.

“Thor! _Thor!_ ” Fandral shook him again, as he’d done twice already. “You’re scaring them, Thor!”

“It’s over,” Hogun said softly. “The battle is won.”

“Well, I suppose it was more a retreat than a battle,” Volstagg mused, tugging thoughtfully at his beard. “But I expect there shall be feasting all the same.”

“Not for us,” Hogun reminded him and Volstagg sighed.

“Not for us, no,” he agreed mournfully. “Not here, at least.”

“ _Thor_ ,” Fandral called to him again, squeezing Thor by the shoulders and trying to catch his eye through the energy blazing in it. “He’s gone, Thor. He did his duty as a King of Asgard. Now…you need to do yours, my friend.”

Slowly, the storm quieted to a gentle, chilling rain and the power faded from Thor’s gaze. Numbly, he looked upon the faces of his friends, though he felt no warmth in the golden light they cast. Turning his head, he looked beyond them, to the huddled masses who looked back at him with fear and hope and trepidation. He knew that Heimdall was somewhere among them, weak and blinded by Loki’s treachery, but _alive_ all the same. Korg and the gladiators, Hulk, the Valkyrie…they were all of them _here_ and _alive_ and Loki was _gone_.

“No,” Thor said suddenly, pulling away from the Warriors Three and pushing through the crowd to where he had just spied the high collar of a crimson cape. “Not this time.” Reaching out, he caught hold of the arm of Dr. Stephen Strange and spun him round. “You! Wizard! Send me back.”

“Um, hi?” Strange tried to pull his arm free, but found himself held fast. “And also, what?”

“You create portals,” Thor insisted. “I’ve _seen_ you create portals. So send me _back_ or bring Loki _here_.”

“Okay, first off, I’m still not a wizard. Actually no, the _first_ thing is that I _don’t work for you_ ,” Strange declared irritably. “Second, I create portals here. On Earth. I have no idea where your brother is or if he’s even still alive. Third, if he _is_ alive, then I _still_ don’t want him _here_.”

“I know where he is,” Vision commented mildly as he drifted down to join them and Strange sighed heavily. “But all of this was to bring you here, Thor… We need you for the war to come.”

“Don’t care,” Thor shrugged, indifferent. “I don’t care what he’s done or why he’s done it. I don’t care about wars or kingdoms or how impossible you say it is. I’m not staying here if he’s not at my side. So I say again to you…send me back or bring him here.”

Strange pinched at the bridge of his nose and muttered darkly for a few moments, then sighed again and looked at Vision. “Can you tell me _exactly_ where Loki is?”

The stone pulsed softly at his brow as Vision’s eyes went distant for a moment, then he shook his head. “Not while he holds the Tesseract…its power is too vast to pinpoint.”

“Great. And of course I suppose it’s too much to ask that anyone would be carrying around his hair or blood. Looks like you’re headed right back to where you started, then,” Strange said flatly, looking pointedly at Thor’s hand on his arm, then at the rain still falling around them.

Releasing the magician, Thor managed a small, grim smile as the rain finally died, the clouds parting overhead to let the light of dawn through to them. “Thank you.”

“Yeah, don’t thank me yet…” Strange muttered as he shook out his arm, then nodded to Vision. “Alright, show me where I’m going and I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thor!” the Valkyrie called, running forward out of the crowd to come to his side. “If you’re going back, take me with you.”

“No,” he denied her softly, shaking his head. “I need you here. I’m trusting you and Heimdall to keep Asgard safe. And besides…if I take you, I’ll have to take _him_.” Thor nodded past her to where the Hulk stood at a distance, keeping a watchful eye on the Valkyrie. “If everything goes according to plan, I’ll just swoop in, pick him up and be back before you know it. It’ll all work out great.”

Her full mouth twisted into an unhappy frown, but she nodded firmly and clasped his arm, squeezing it. “That’s a terrible plan,” she told him seriously. “Don’t die. And bring him home, Your Majesty…so that I may _kill_ him.”

“You’ll have to form a queue,” he replied, clasping at her in return.

“Get ready,” Strange warned him, tense with concentration as he finished drawing together bright, amber lines of magic and began circling his hand in the air. Vision stood at his back with his hand on the magician’s shoulder, stone glowing bright at his brow. “I’ll only have the strength to do this once.”

Thor pulled away from the Valkyrie and looked around at them all; his friends, his people, all those he would abandon now to this end. He was grounded there upon the Earth, upon what would become Asgard, yet the void within him was as vast as the space between him and Loki now. Without doubt, without hesitation, Thor turned to face the bright, sparking portal and passed through it.

######  _16:11:53:09_

“I can’t believe you killed my tree,” Thor murmured against Loki’s hair, tangled up with him in the grass and mud.

“I killed _half_ of your tree,” Loki corrected mildly, looking up into its boughs. True to his word, half of the branches stretched out above them were thick with leaves that rustled pleasantly in the breeze. The other half were black and barren, still frozen over from root to twig where Loki’s baseless power had poured into it. “I’m sure it will survive.”

“Survive being half-killed? How did you come to such an end?” Thor wondered in amusement.

Loki rolled his eyes and tugged at Thor’s beard so that he could bite lightly at the smile on his lips. “Anything made by you is too stubborn to do anything else,” he told him seriously and drank in the sound of his laughter. Pushing away from him, Loki scowled up at the reddening sky. “We had better go before they think I’ve done away with you.”

“I’m not sure you haven’t,” Thor teased, stretching languidly. “Perhaps this is Valhalla.”

“In Valhalla I wouldn’t be made to suffer through such mawkish turn of phrase,” Loki assured him.

“How did you get here, anyway?” Thor wondered, having noticed a distinct lack of ship once he’d come back to his senses.

Loki hesitated, then looked away. “I ran.”

Brow furrowed, Thor regarded him. “You ra-“ he broke off with sudden realization, eye widening in delight. “As a _horse?_ You did, didn’t you? You ran here as a horse!” Thor had always been more than a little fascinated by Loki’s ability to change form and his pleasure only increased at his sullen silence now. “Does that mean you’ll finally let me ride you?”

“You can _fly_ ,” Loki pointed out waspishly. Even as children Thor had been obsessed with the idea of riding him, of having a magical horse far more impressive than Slepnir or the winged mares of the Valkyrior.

“Then…you can ride me?” he teased and grinned cheekily, laughing as Loki shoved at him.

Getting to his feet, Loki searched out his tunic and hunting leathers in the tall grass, pausing when he bent to retrieve them. His hand was still a vivid, startling blue, the smoothness broken by raised, swirling lines. Loki hadn’t realized that he’d lain in his natural form all the time he’d been tangled with Thor among the roots of his tree. Frowning slightly, he concentrated and the blue began to fade back from his fingertips, but he started when Thor caught his arm and turned him. Thor watched Loki closely as he concealed himself once more, his expression soft and warm as his eye roamed over his changing features.

“I used to look at you so often when we were young, imagining I could find the familiarity of our parents in you,” Thor admitted, his voice quiet and reverent. “The truth was that I couldn’t accept what my eyes could plainly see, that you were too fair and clever by far to belong with me. But that was impossible…and so I kept looking, kept making up the difference in my mind.” He ran a finger lightly over the fading line at his brow, tracing the sharp definition of his nose and smoothing over the thin curve of his upper lip. “I thought later that knowing the truth would change that, but…I don’t want to stop looking. You are…arresting.”

“And _you_ are _ridiculous_ ,” Loki complained without heat, flushed and secretly pleased by his scrutiny.

“Are you mine?” Thor asked him softly, cupping his neck as he’d done so many times before.

Loki loved and hated Thor intensely for the warmth that ached in him, curling in to settle low and persistent in his belly. It was cruel, this transient happiness, as much an illusion as any of his tricks, yet he would hold to it for as long as time would allow. Leaning in to Thor’s touch, Loki gave him a wry, bittersweet smile.

“Haven’t I always been?”

######  FIN 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: Dirty, dirty porn and lots of angst. Mentions of past torture/mutilation, minor character death (sort of), sodomy in pretty much every flavor, minor breathplay, cross-dressing kink, consent issues, body shame issues, implied Grandmaster/Loki, implied Hulk/Valkyrie, implied Bruce/Valkyrie, past Bruce/Natasha, Intersex!Loki, possessive behavior, minor D/s, and Loki making _extremely_ questionable choices.
> 
>  
> 
> Visit me on [Tumblr](https://godofhammers-ao3.tumblr.com/)!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Отстрой все заново](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16113173) by [fandom_Loki_all_inclusive_2018](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fandom_Loki_all_inclusive_2018/pseuds/fandom_Loki_all_inclusive_2018), [timid_owl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/timid_owl/pseuds/timid_owl)




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